The Dead Files (2011–…): Season 8, Episode 1 - Toys for the Dead - full transcript
Steve and Amy investigate paranormal activity at a brothel in Butte, MT.
Why are there so many dead
bodies laying around here?
When I'm working, it
pushed me pretty good.
He's a slapper, a pincher, a hitter.
Oh, my God.
Out of Butte's beautiful history,
this is the black mark.
What is wrong with this [bleep] place?
I think there is
something very bad here.
There's problems, big problems.
A bunch of perverted freaks.
There's a dark presence.
My name is Amy Allan.
These things, they're freaking out.
They're from hell.
I see dead people.
They were being hunted.
I speak to dead people.
They were setting people
on fire, burning them alive.
And they speak to me.
Her neck got broken.
But there's only one way to
know if my findings are real.
I hear a gunshot.
I rely on my partner.
I'm Steve Di Schiavi.
I'm a retired New York
City homicide detective.
Something's not right here.
And I know every person,
every house has secrets.
It's not safe here.
It's my job to reveal them.
Are any of them buried on the property?
They're all buried here.
But Steve and I never speak...
We never communicate
during an investigation.
Until the very end...
I can't do it no more.
When we uncover if it's
safe for you to stay...
Holy [bleep] look at this.
Or time to get out.
It does not have a happy ending.
Something kills people here.
I'm out here in Butte.
It's an old mining town
in southwest Montana.
I got a call from a woman named Ginny
who sounded real shaken up.
A close friend brought an
old brothel called the Dumas
and restored it into a museum.
Now, she works there,
and she says that paranormal activity
has gotten violent and out of control.
She doesn't think it's safe to be there,
but she says her friend has
become obsessed and won't leave.
I hope Amy and I can help her out.
Before Amy
arrives, I clear the area
of anything that might
influence her findings.
This is a large space with a lot
of artwork and historical items
that need to be removed.
When I'm finished,
the location will be
ready for tonight's walk.
Oh, boy.
I walked in the door, and I
heard, "Get her out of here."
And the one who said, "Get
her out of here," is a male.
I feel like he was an owner.
He looks like he's from pretty far back,
but his presence is very here.
I think he kind of had his
hand in a lot of illegal things,
like I do see prostitutes around him.
I'm hearing "whore".
So, Ginny, I'm glad I'm here.
When we spoke on the phone,
you sounded really concerned
for your friend, Michael.
Yes, Michael is my best friend,
and he bought this brothel
about three years ago.
And he's become pretty
obsessed with the place.
Okay.
Now, he runs it as a
museum, you mentioned?
Yes.
It's a piece of Butte's history.
It was built in 1890 as a brothel.
Okay.
It ran for 92 years illegally,
and the sheriff shut it down in 1982.
Wow, okay. So, it ran for a long time.
It did.
They were gonna knock this down.
So, he saved it from the wrecking ball.
He did.
Okay, now, what is it that you do here?
I do history tours.
Okay.
Now, everybody's having
paranormal experiences here,
- or is it just Michael?
- Everybody.
People are hearing
footsteps, seeing apparitions,
and now things are getting violent.
Michael's had some experiences here
that I'm really concerned about.
He has been pushed by
something he cannot see.
His whole demeanor
changes being in here.
He gets all OCD.
He just, like, gets really
uptight about things in here.
You get him outside those doors,
he's a whole different guy.
It's a concern. It's a concern.
Wow.
What do you think is
going on in this place?
I think there's some
angry spirits in here,
possibly demonic,
and I don't think it likes Michael.
Okay.
There are quite
a few dead people here.
They are very physical
towards the living.
Beating them, molesting them,
um... influencing them.
How would they be influenced?
I think it might change their
behaviors and thought process,
and they might become, you
know, depressed, anxious.
Do weird [bleep] that
they don't normally do.
You know, that would be really bad.
This place is obviously creepy,
but why'd you bring me down here?
Because I've had a few
scary experiences down here.
Okay, like what?
I'll be doing a tour with some folks,
and I see shadows.
They're all over down here.
You can see out of
your peripheral vision,
they just run by you
really, really fast.
Are you sure it's not people on the tour
playing games with the
lights or something?
No, it's happened when I've
been down here by myself.
Okay. So, anything else?
I've had scratching and bruising
when I've left here from my tours.
One night, I literally had a scratch
down the middle of my back.
Not one, not two, but three
down the middle of my
back, and they burned.
I've had bruises on my arms
that look like fingerprints,
and I have no idea where they came from.
I know you called us for Michael,
but I think you need help
just as bad as he does.
I think there is
something very bad here.
I don't know what it is.
Hopefully, Amy can help us with that.
Okay.
The dead here are very capable
of interacting with the living.
It's, like, very direct.
Oh, there's so much.
Oh, my gosh.
The land owner guy, he likes
to keep people out of here.
Here he smothers the
[bleep] out of people.
God, I feel like I'm being
punched in the stomach.
It's horrible, like, it's awful.
So, sure as [bleep],
if people are down here,
there's problems.
Big problems.
It's good to finally meet you.
I've spoken with Ginny. She's
very concerned about you.
She used the word "obsessed"
to describe how you
feel about this place.
- Would you agree with that?
- Yeah.
Sometimes, it's kind
of like a time warp.
I might come here and plan
to be here until midnight,
and then it's 5:00 A.M.
I mean, maybe it's me, I don't know,
but you seem a little bit on edge to me.
If I met you at a bar down the block,
do you think your demeanor
would be different?
Yeah, I feel very
anxious sometimes in here.
I don't know what it is.
What does this building mean to you?
It's such an important landmark place.
It needs to be saved.
I don't look at it as being an owner.
To me, it's more of kind of stewardship.
It doesn't belong to me,
as much as it belongs
to Montana and Butte.
So, do you feel that you have
an obligation to this building?
Mm-hmm.
- You do?
- Yeah.
That's interesting.
Ginny mentioned that it's
gotten pretty violent.
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Here and to you in particular.
What happened?
She and I were in
here one night working.
I was pushed kind of like
a... more in the face,
it felt like, but it
pushed me pretty good.
She was right behind
me, and she just said,
"What the [bleep]
was that?" And then...
I think nine out of ten
people would have packed up
and [bleep] got out of
here, put it up for sale,
to be honest with you.
Yeah, yeah.
Why don't you just give this place up?
I'm very attached to it. Unexplainably.
The land owner is mean.
He's a slapper, a pincher, a hitter.
If somebody he doesn't like is around,
he'll do it to them.
Do you know if
people might see this guy?
I think that they see a dark mist.
Oh, boy.
This is not good.
This place is not
healthy for living people.
Now, Ginny called us in 'cause
she was worried about Michael.
He's your partner.
How long you two guys been together?
We've been together for eight years.
Okay, and you guys owned
this place for three.
Yes.
So you know him pretty well.
How concerned are you for Mike?
I do have a pretty
strong concern for him.
His mood swings are really
bad since we bought it.
I've noticed he's more
obsessive-compulsive, agitated.
A lot of times, that
anger gets taken out on me.
Wow.
What do they say, you take
out stuff on the ones you love?
Yeah.
I've talked to Ginny.
I've talked to Michael.
People are having experiences here.
Now, what about yourself?
I was in one of the
rooms, and all of a sudden,
I felt this really warm
hand on my shoulder.
And then moments after I felt
the hand, along with the hand,
there was this really warm
breath going across my neck.
Would you say it was a man or
a woman's hand that touched you?
I would definitely say it was a woman's.
It was a lot more intimate,
almost sensual in a way.
You mean like a woman coming onto you?
Yeah.
There's a female who's very sexual.
What does she do?
She's hands-on.
I think she likes younger men.
If she finds somebody attractive,
she'll do stuff.
She's physical that way.
Travis, let me ask you a question
about the tours you do here.
Have you had any
complaints about anything?
From the customers
that have come through?
I've heard a wide variety
of different things.
People getting pinched,
their hair tugged repeatedly.
I've even seen people
go running out the door.
They get nauseated.
I've even seen a couple of
them, you know, throw up.
Now, obviously, you believe that
there's something supernatural here.
Oh, without a doubt.
I think there's numerous spirits here.
Oh, oh. Oh, boy.
I don't like... I
don't like upstairs.
Lots of anxiety up here.
Lots of anxiety, lots of stress.
Like, it's... it's
kind of making me sick.
It's like making my stomach upset.
I feel nauseous.
Ooh. My goodness. Oh, my.
Really, really, really bad.
So, Ron, I understand
that you've done some work
in the building restoring it.
- Yes.
- Okay.
Quite a bit.
Have you had any experiences
that you can't explain?
When I was working here,
I got the sense that
I was gonna get killed.
An evil presence, like,
telling me get out of here.
Really?
Has anything else happened to you?
My tools would end up missing,
and then I started
getting really scared.
The hair on the back of my neck come up.
And nobody's here messing with you?
No.
And you still come down here.
I won't come down no more by myself.
- You don't?
- Nope.
Now, Ron, you don't strike me
as the type of guy that scares too easy.
Not too easy.
I was a boxer
and hard brick layer, a concrete man.
I'm not scared of much.
But this place seems to spook you out.
Yes, it's... it's
dangerous down here.
I honestly believe that.
Okay.
And then there's another lady.
She likes to torture people,
but she is one to move things.
Open and close doors, move
objects, [bleep] like that.
Can you describe her?
Her skin is like tree bark,
and her arms are twisted
like the roots of a tree.
But it's so weird how
each of these dead people
has very specific, physical things
that they do with the living.
It's almost like they've had
a dialogue, and they're, like,
"Well, I do this, so don't you dare."
What would all this
mean for the living here?
They would be, you know,
toys for the dead people.
Look, it doesn't take a
homicide detective to figure out
what my first move is here,
especially since Michael
and Travis's building
used to be a brothel.
I'm heading back to the Dumas
to meet with a local historian
who said life there was
everything you would expect
and worse.
Let's start from the beginning.
Who built this building and when?
The building was actually built
by Arthur and Joseph Nadeau.
This is a photograph of Joseph.
The brothers built
this building in 1890,
and they also built
other red-light properties
here in the district.
So, these guys were
pretty smart businessmen.
They were very well-educated brothers,
yes, and they were very wealthy.
Okay.
But the Nadeau brothers
apparently kind of separated.
We really don't know why.
And Joseph stayed around
and ran the business.
Okay.
So, now, what about Joseph?
Whatever happened to him?
Well, Joseph died in 1925 here in Butte.
Okay, now, how old was Joe when he died?
He was 77.
This guy, he's gonna
cause some [bleep] problems.
I've seen a lot of dead
people in this place,
but my biggest concern is the land owner
who attacks the living,
and I'm trying to get a
look into who he was in life.
He's super negative
and extremely greedy.
Like, disgustingly greedy.
Do you know what his
connection here might be?
I think he might have owned the land
and potentially built this building.
Can you describe him more?
He's very well educated and wealthy.
White hair, pal skin,
and I heard 1900 and 1901 for him.
There was a lot of movement
in here, a lot of traffic,
which benefited him with what he did.
He is really nasty.
The Nadeau
brothers opened this place
as a very high-end brothel.
Okay.
Very exclusive clients would come here
and spend as much as $1,000
a night on entertainment.
So, the girls who worked
here were pretty high-end?
They were very, very high-end girls.
They were supposedly
very, very beautiful.
You know, Ellen, I was down
in that basement yesterday,
and I got to be honest with you.
It didn't look too high end to me.
Yeah, it wasn't too high end.
You know, here's what happened.
The copper kings left Butte in 1900,
and so the business had to adjust.
The upper floor catered
to the upper class.
The ground floor catered
to more of a business class,
and the basement catered to
the miners and the laborers.
So, I got to imagine, just
looking at that basement,
the conditions had to be
really bad for these girls.
It probably wasn't a
pleasant place to work,
and the women charged
50 cents a customer
and maybe would service
50 men during a work shift.
The mines operated 24 hours a day,
and so did the women.
These miners had to be rough customers.
It was a really dangerous undertaking.
There was violence. There was addiction.
Alcohol, laudanum, opium.
There was the danger of pregnancy.
- It was a dangerous business.
- Right.
- There's no question about that.
- Wow.
Nothing is legitimate.
They all have perversions.
They're dirty, and they're angry,
so a bunch of perverted freaks.
I feel like there was a
lot of drugs and alcohol.
Like opium, like hash,
like marijuana, cocaine.
I see a lot of, like,
people laying down here.
Like, just laying around.
How many?
A lot.
I did hear mining.
Are you [bleep] kidding me?
I'm trying not to be negative,
but it's kind of impossible here
because this is not a good place.
This is a cycle. This is a cycle.
What?
Anybody who rents
maybe or buys this place
is not on the up-and-up.
I'm, like, what is wrong
with this [bleep] place?
If you need us to investigate
unexplained activity in your home,
Click on "Help me, Dead
Files!" to submit your story,
and we'll help if we can.
So far, I've got clients
who've been physically
assaulted on a property
that used to be ground
zero for sex and violence.
But I need to see if
there's anything else.
Digging through the archives,
I find a woman named Gertrude Pitkanen.
Turns out, she was charged with
three counts of manslaughter
after performing illegal abortions
in Butte's red-light district.
So, I made some calls, and it turns out,
it's very likely that
prostitutes from the Dumas
ended up going to this
illegal abortion doctor.
I'm heading over to meet
with a local professor
who says that this case
takes an even darker
and more horrifying twist.
So, what can you
tell me about this woman?
Her name was Gertrude Pitkanen.
Locals called her Gertie.
She ran a back-alley abortion clinic.
Now, would she have ever
done abortions at the Dumas?
Sure, absolutely.
Ladies that worked at the Dumas Brothel,
they got pregnant, they
didn't have a lot of options.
If you were pregnant,
and you were showing,
you were out of business.
But one of their best
options was Gertie.
- I read she got charged three times.
- Yes.
- What was the story behind that?
- Three charges.
Manslaughter, all three of
them, between 1929 and 1939.
Because of botched abortions.
The gals that she
performed the abortion on
died directly because of her services.
Here's their death certificates.
All right, so what was the
outcomes of these trials?
All three of those charges
were thrown out of court
due to a lack of evidence.
On the phone, you had mentioned
that this story had a dark turn to it.
I mean, how much darker could it get?
Pretty dark.
Some of these young mothers,
not wanting an abortion,
wanting to go full-term, were told
right after they had given
birth that the babies had died
when they actually hadn't.
They would be taken out the back door.
In some cases, with the
placenta still attached.
And Gertie would turn
around and sell those babies
on the black market.
14 we know of, possibly up to 28.
Going rate was about 500 bucks.
All right, so she's a piece
of [bleep] for doing this.
Yes, yes.
Out of Butte's beautiful history,
this is the black mark.
Why are there so many [bleep]
dead bodies laying around here?
How many?
A lot.
Majority men, but there are women,
and there are children, okay.
I'm seeing, like, a lot of kids.
Too many kids for one family.
It's almost like a daycare.
And something about these children,
like, they didn't have parents.
So, I almost wonder if they
were, like, selling these kids?
Like, drug dealers and
children sellers and pimps.
Oh, my God.
You got a brothel catering to
some pretty tough customers,
so I got to think, there had to be
a couple of homicides in there.
I called the Butte sheriff
who did some digging,
and he came up with
two suspicious deaths
that may help my case.
Sheriff, why did you want to meet here?
Well, this is the old city jail
where anybody who was
arrested in the area,
the red-light district,
would likely have come
had they been arrested.
Okay, now, you mentioned on the phone,
there were two suspicious
deaths connected to the Dumas.
Let's start with the first one.
Elinor Knott.
She was the madame at the Dumas Brothel
from 1950 to 1955 when she passed away.
Okay.
Her body was found on the second
floor of the Dumas Brothel.
I have Elinor's death
certificate right here.
It lists coronary occlusion
as the cause of her death.
Her heart disease had
progressed to where it was fatal.
She was young, though, 42.
She is relatively young to
have that kind of heart disease.
So, why was that
suspicious, do you think?
There was a woman named Bonita Farren
who took over as the
madame of the Dumas Brothel
after Elinor Knott passed away.
And there was a rumor that
Bonita may have had something
to do with Elinor Knott's death
so she could take over the brothel.
Now, you mentioned there was
a second suspicious death.
What was that?
Yeah, the second death
is Bonita Farren's husband, John Farren.
I have John Farren's death
certificate right here.
Cerebral hemorrhage.
Yeah, it appears that he
had fallen down the stairs,
and he was discovered at
the bottom of a staircase
near the rear of the brothel.
Yeah, I know that staircase pretty well.
That's quite a flight of stairs.
The doctor who signed the
death certificate believed
that alcohol was a contributing
factor to his death.
And it kind of connected
in a way, too, because...
Yeah, the link being Bonita Farren, yes.
Okay.
During my walk, I
encountered a very sexual woman.
I'm meeting with a
sketch artist to describe
what I saw her doing to a living male.
A male was laying in the bed,
and a female was
caressing the male's chest.
She had big brown eyes and
delicate facial features.
And she was kind of
standing beside the bed
looking down and touching him.
Is that what you saw?
Yes, that's what I saw.
Now that Amy and I have
completed our investigations,
we're ready to reveal
our findings to each other
and our clients for the first time.
Amy, I'd like you to
meet Michael and Travis.
Now, these guys are partners
in life and in business.
They bought this historic
building about three years ago,
but they feel like something
doesn't want them here.
But they're not the
ones that called us in.
This is Ginny. That's
Michael's best friend.
She also works here as a tour guide.
She believes that whatever's
here is changing Michael,
and she's worried that
he might be in danger.
So, now that Amy knows
a little bit about
what's going on with you guys,
I'm gonna ask her to
describe her walk for us.
When I first walked in the door,
I heard a male say, "Get out of here."
And I heard a woman call out, "whore".
I immediately got that
there was a lot of alcohol,
and then somebody was talking
about specific drug usage here.
Opium, hash, marijuana, and cocaine.
Well, let me tell you a
little bit about the building.
We're smack in the
middle of what used to be
Butte's red-light district.
This building operated as
a brothel from 1890 to 1982.
And there were competing
brothels all around this area.
I managed to track
down a couple of photos
from what used to be
behind this building here.
Now, as you can imagine, the
conditions for these women
had to be really bad, and
a lot of them turned to
alcohol and drugs, including opium.
Now, back in '82, the Dumas Brothel
was shut down and
neglected for a long time.
Michael stepped in, and he saved it.
Now, he's been renovating it
and turning it into
an historical museum.
Sometimes I think it's crazy.
We've put ourselves into
debt to try and restore it.
I don't know why. I
don't know what drew me.
I fell in love with
it when I entered it.
I felt that if someone
didn't step up to the plate
to take it over, it
would cease to exist.
Interesting.
The basement was extremely active.
Going down there, it's like shocking.
The majority of the people
I saw down there were men.
They seemed to have
interesting sexual proclivities.
They were all, like,
doing dirty business
and stuff like that.
I heard somebody talking about mining.
And then I was getting
punched. Punched in the stomach.
It's interesting you
talk about the basement.
Nobody likes the basement at all.
And Ginny, tell her how you
feel like when you're down there,
it's like a terrible feeling for you.
All the time, I
feel like I'm being watched.
In fact, I was chased up the stairs,
and I don't know what
I was being chased by.
Well, let me explain
why you might have seen
some of those things in the basement.
Each level of the Dumas catered
to a different clientele.
Top floor was for the high echelon.
The main floor was, you
know, middle-class-type guys.
But the basement was for the miners.
Now, it was a nasty place.
From what I was told, from an expert,
they would service up
to maybe 50 guys a day.
The other thing that I saw down
there was a lot of children.
They weren't particularly cared for,
so I'm thinking they
didn't have parents.
Then I ran into this guy.
He was definitely like
a pimp and a drug runner,
and I was feeling like maybe
he also sold the children.
That's interesting.
From the 1920s through the 1950s,
a woman named Gertie Pitkanen
and her husband, Gustavus,
ran what they called a maternity clinic
a couple blocks from here.
What she really ran
was an abortion clinic.
Now, if a prostitute got
pregnant here at the Dumas,
you know, they had two choices.
Either get an abortion,
or you're out of work.
Okay.
Now, Gertie Pitkanen was performing
these back-alley abortions,
and they were very dangerous.
Over a 10-year period,
she wound up getting
charged three different times
for manslaughter.
I actually was able to get a
hold of the death certificates
here of three young ladies who died
as a result of botched abortions.
Oh, my goodness.
But she was never convicted.
Now, you mentioned
something about selling kids.
Yes.
Gertie, on at least 14
documented occasions,
was telling mothers that
their babies were stillborn
and then taking those
babies that were alive
and selling them for
$500 on the black market.
Wow.
They're known as Gertie's babies.
I met two women in here.
The first one I encountered
in one of the bedrooms,
and she creeped me out because
of the way that she looked.
Her skin looks like tree bark.
Her arms were really
long but, like, twisted,
and her fingers looked like tree roots.
So, it was very bizarre.
She is able to move objects
and open and close doors.
She's the one who can do
little things like that.
Talking about moving objects.
They had a guy named Ron
that's a brick mason working down there.
Ginny, tell 'em how
his stuff goes missing.
Stuff moves on its own down there.
He'll lay it down, and he'll
go he know he put it there.
And he'll go back to
get it, and it's gone.
It usually takes about twice
as long to do any work in here
because you spend half the time
just trying to find the
materials or the tools
because as soon as you turn
your back, they're gone.
That's, like up her alley, so.
Wow.
So, I met another lady.
I guess you could call
her, like, a nymphomaniac.
Considering where we
are, I'm not shocked.
She's interested in
younger, muscular men,
and she likes to touch people
inappropriately and sexually.
I did have a sketch done of her.
She was trying to seduce me.
It was shortly after
we bought the building,
and I was cleaning up all the cobwebs.
All of a sudden, I felt this
really warm hand on my shoulder.
Along with it, there was
really warm, gentle breath
across my neck.
So, do you think
she was a prostitute here?
Yeah, and I think she
very much enjoyed her job.
I mean, is it a threat to them?
Well, I think that being molested
in the middle of the night
would maybe be a problem.
So, what else is going on?
I met this guy.
He is a very dominant personality here,
and he concerns me a great deal.
He was not happy that I was here.
He's a very, very negative person.
People might see him as an elderly man,
or they see, like, a fog,
gray or a black fog.
I kept referring to him
as the landowner guy.
He goes everywhere,
but he does like to
hang out in the basement.
He is very physical.
If he doesn't like you,
he'll do things like
pushing, shoving, pinching.
If he really doesn't like somebody,
he'll become even more violent.
He'll actually, like,
try to smother people.
And when he does that, it's
because he wants to kill them.
Now, you got shoved in the
face. Tell Amy what happened.
Ginny and
myself came in one night
and walked down the hall there,
and it just full force, fwoof,
and it knocked me backward.
Ginny was right behind
me, and I think she said,
"What the [bleep] was that?"
Now, she goes home with
bruises all the time.
I do go home with bruises
once in a while, yes, I do.
And it's other people... some
of the people on the tours.
Interesting.
Now, you mentioned something
about a mist, a shadow?
Now, you guys reported.
We see mists in here, you bet.
Do you feel threatened
sometimes by these incidents?
Yes.
There's been a few times I've left.
Do you have any idea who this
guy might have been in life?
Well, when he was alive,
he was very, very greedy.
I got that he was the boss.
Hmm.
I think that he was the first owner.
I think he possibly had something to do
with the building of this place.
There was a lot of business,
which he benefited greatly from.
And I got the years 1900 and
1901 specifically for him.
All right, so let me tell
you about the original owner
and see if we have a match.
His name was Joseph Nadeau,
and he built this building
as a brothel in 1890.
Oh!
And he opened up until he died in 1925.
The guy was a shrewd businessman.
He didn't own just this brothel.
He owned several brothels
in the neighborhood.
Now, I got a photo of him.
Okay.
This is very interesting.
When you guys first arrived,
I was looking at you.
And I was, like, looks really familiar.
What do you think about him?
It makes me shake.
It makes my heart pound,
and it makes my gut hurt.
But do you feel like any kind of,
I don't know, attachment?
I think that I have
a duty here to...
Fulfill something, I don't know what it is.
I bought it the first
day I set foot in there.
'Cause you already owned it.
What the hell are you talking about?
You're this person.
So, you're telling me that
Michael is Joseph Nadeau.
Do you feel, like, any kind
of, I don't know, attachment?
I think that I have a duty
here to fulfill something,
I don't know what it is.
I bought it the first
day I set foot in there.
'Cause you already owned it.
What the hell are you talking about?
You're this person.
So, you're telling me that
Michael is Joseph Nadeau.
Yes.
Was he reincarnated?
Yes.
Whoa.
From the moment
I laid eyes on Michael,
I knew there was something
very familiar about him,
and when he talked about his
obsession with the brothel,
I got even more suspicious.
But when I saw the picture
of the original owner,
it all clicked.
It looks like an older
version of Michael.
Yeah, especially around the eyes.
He looks like my grandfather.
I felt something, though. I knew.
I knew it, but I don't want to feel like
some deceased person, some
spirit, some entity saying,
"You need to do my bidding."
It's not like you're
doing anybody's bidding.
This is you.
This is blowing me away.
I mean, this is one of these
cases I'm gonna walk away from,
and it's gonna be in the back
of my head for a long time.
I'm, like, nervous for
you. I'm scared for you.
I'm in awe of this. I'm
I'm, like, speechless.
My question to you is, though,
do you believe you're this guy?
Yes.
How else do you explain any of it?
Needless to say, this is probably one of
the most unusual cases
that we've worked on.
Now we got to answer the big question.
Is it safe for you to stay here?
According to Amy, for the second time,
and fix this place up?
So for that answer, I'm
gonna turn it over to Amy
and see what she has to say.
Right now, the situation
is not particularly healthy.
Your soul isn't complete
because you're continuing
a life that you had before.
What I think is going on is
that sometimes, when people die,
the soul in its entirety
doesn't completely move on.
So it'll shatter sometimes.
When Joseph died, his soul split.
One piece remained here
in the form of the old man,
and the other became you.
So, what I want you to
do is to find a person
who is a reiki master who has
the ability to collect souls.
And what she does is
absorb them into herself,
and then she releases them.
So, your former self that's here,
she needs to collect that soul,
then needs to move that soul on.
Okay.
One thing I'm a little confused about.
If she takes Nadeau with her,
is he still reincarnated Joe Nadeau?
Yes, but once he moves on,
you may not have an interest
anymore in this place
and completely relinquish that fixation.
Now, what about the
tree lady and the nympho?
What about those people?
The reiki master will be
able to move them on, as well.
Okay.
This stuff is fascinating
when you think about it.
All the pieces, you know,
to this fit together.
Definitely.
I feel like a whole
weight has...
It's like I felt when I
walked in here the first time,
how it took my breath away.
I feel like I can breathe again.
It's gonna be quite the journey.
bodies laying around here?
When I'm working, it
pushed me pretty good.
He's a slapper, a pincher, a hitter.
Oh, my God.
Out of Butte's beautiful history,
this is the black mark.
What is wrong with this [bleep] place?
I think there is
something very bad here.
There's problems, big problems.
A bunch of perverted freaks.
There's a dark presence.
My name is Amy Allan.
These things, they're freaking out.
They're from hell.
I see dead people.
They were being hunted.
I speak to dead people.
They were setting people
on fire, burning them alive.
And they speak to me.
Her neck got broken.
But there's only one way to
know if my findings are real.
I hear a gunshot.
I rely on my partner.
I'm Steve Di Schiavi.
I'm a retired New York
City homicide detective.
Something's not right here.
And I know every person,
every house has secrets.
It's not safe here.
It's my job to reveal them.
Are any of them buried on the property?
They're all buried here.
But Steve and I never speak...
We never communicate
during an investigation.
Until the very end...
I can't do it no more.
When we uncover if it's
safe for you to stay...
Holy [bleep] look at this.
Or time to get out.
It does not have a happy ending.
Something kills people here.
I'm out here in Butte.
It's an old mining town
in southwest Montana.
I got a call from a woman named Ginny
who sounded real shaken up.
A close friend brought an
old brothel called the Dumas
and restored it into a museum.
Now, she works there,
and she says that paranormal activity
has gotten violent and out of control.
She doesn't think it's safe to be there,
but she says her friend has
become obsessed and won't leave.
I hope Amy and I can help her out.
Before Amy
arrives, I clear the area
of anything that might
influence her findings.
This is a large space with a lot
of artwork and historical items
that need to be removed.
When I'm finished,
the location will be
ready for tonight's walk.
Oh, boy.
I walked in the door, and I
heard, "Get her out of here."
And the one who said, "Get
her out of here," is a male.
I feel like he was an owner.
He looks like he's from pretty far back,
but his presence is very here.
I think he kind of had his
hand in a lot of illegal things,
like I do see prostitutes around him.
I'm hearing "whore".
So, Ginny, I'm glad I'm here.
When we spoke on the phone,
you sounded really concerned
for your friend, Michael.
Yes, Michael is my best friend,
and he bought this brothel
about three years ago.
And he's become pretty
obsessed with the place.
Okay.
Now, he runs it as a
museum, you mentioned?
Yes.
It's a piece of Butte's history.
It was built in 1890 as a brothel.
Okay.
It ran for 92 years illegally,
and the sheriff shut it down in 1982.
Wow, okay. So, it ran for a long time.
It did.
They were gonna knock this down.
So, he saved it from the wrecking ball.
He did.
Okay, now, what is it that you do here?
I do history tours.
Okay.
Now, everybody's having
paranormal experiences here,
- or is it just Michael?
- Everybody.
People are hearing
footsteps, seeing apparitions,
and now things are getting violent.
Michael's had some experiences here
that I'm really concerned about.
He has been pushed by
something he cannot see.
His whole demeanor
changes being in here.
He gets all OCD.
He just, like, gets really
uptight about things in here.
You get him outside those doors,
he's a whole different guy.
It's a concern. It's a concern.
Wow.
What do you think is
going on in this place?
I think there's some
angry spirits in here,
possibly demonic,
and I don't think it likes Michael.
Okay.
There are quite
a few dead people here.
They are very physical
towards the living.
Beating them, molesting them,
um... influencing them.
How would they be influenced?
I think it might change their
behaviors and thought process,
and they might become, you
know, depressed, anxious.
Do weird [bleep] that
they don't normally do.
You know, that would be really bad.
This place is obviously creepy,
but why'd you bring me down here?
Because I've had a few
scary experiences down here.
Okay, like what?
I'll be doing a tour with some folks,
and I see shadows.
They're all over down here.
You can see out of
your peripheral vision,
they just run by you
really, really fast.
Are you sure it's not people on the tour
playing games with the
lights or something?
No, it's happened when I've
been down here by myself.
Okay. So, anything else?
I've had scratching and bruising
when I've left here from my tours.
One night, I literally had a scratch
down the middle of my back.
Not one, not two, but three
down the middle of my
back, and they burned.
I've had bruises on my arms
that look like fingerprints,
and I have no idea where they came from.
I know you called us for Michael,
but I think you need help
just as bad as he does.
I think there is
something very bad here.
I don't know what it is.
Hopefully, Amy can help us with that.
Okay.
The dead here are very capable
of interacting with the living.
It's, like, very direct.
Oh, there's so much.
Oh, my gosh.
The land owner guy, he likes
to keep people out of here.
Here he smothers the
[bleep] out of people.
God, I feel like I'm being
punched in the stomach.
It's horrible, like, it's awful.
So, sure as [bleep],
if people are down here,
there's problems.
Big problems.
It's good to finally meet you.
I've spoken with Ginny. She's
very concerned about you.
She used the word "obsessed"
to describe how you
feel about this place.
- Would you agree with that?
- Yeah.
Sometimes, it's kind
of like a time warp.
I might come here and plan
to be here until midnight,
and then it's 5:00 A.M.
I mean, maybe it's me, I don't know,
but you seem a little bit on edge to me.
If I met you at a bar down the block,
do you think your demeanor
would be different?
Yeah, I feel very
anxious sometimes in here.
I don't know what it is.
What does this building mean to you?
It's such an important landmark place.
It needs to be saved.
I don't look at it as being an owner.
To me, it's more of kind of stewardship.
It doesn't belong to me,
as much as it belongs
to Montana and Butte.
So, do you feel that you have
an obligation to this building?
Mm-hmm.
- You do?
- Yeah.
That's interesting.
Ginny mentioned that it's
gotten pretty violent.
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Here and to you in particular.
What happened?
She and I were in
here one night working.
I was pushed kind of like
a... more in the face,
it felt like, but it
pushed me pretty good.
She was right behind
me, and she just said,
"What the [bleep]
was that?" And then...
I think nine out of ten
people would have packed up
and [bleep] got out of
here, put it up for sale,
to be honest with you.
Yeah, yeah.
Why don't you just give this place up?
I'm very attached to it. Unexplainably.
The land owner is mean.
He's a slapper, a pincher, a hitter.
If somebody he doesn't like is around,
he'll do it to them.
Do you know if
people might see this guy?
I think that they see a dark mist.
Oh, boy.
This is not good.
This place is not
healthy for living people.
Now, Ginny called us in 'cause
she was worried about Michael.
He's your partner.
How long you two guys been together?
We've been together for eight years.
Okay, and you guys owned
this place for three.
Yes.
So you know him pretty well.
How concerned are you for Mike?
I do have a pretty
strong concern for him.
His mood swings are really
bad since we bought it.
I've noticed he's more
obsessive-compulsive, agitated.
A lot of times, that
anger gets taken out on me.
Wow.
What do they say, you take
out stuff on the ones you love?
Yeah.
I've talked to Ginny.
I've talked to Michael.
People are having experiences here.
Now, what about yourself?
I was in one of the
rooms, and all of a sudden,
I felt this really warm
hand on my shoulder.
And then moments after I felt
the hand, along with the hand,
there was this really warm
breath going across my neck.
Would you say it was a man or
a woman's hand that touched you?
I would definitely say it was a woman's.
It was a lot more intimate,
almost sensual in a way.
You mean like a woman coming onto you?
Yeah.
There's a female who's very sexual.
What does she do?
She's hands-on.
I think she likes younger men.
If she finds somebody attractive,
she'll do stuff.
She's physical that way.
Travis, let me ask you a question
about the tours you do here.
Have you had any
complaints about anything?
From the customers
that have come through?
I've heard a wide variety
of different things.
People getting pinched,
their hair tugged repeatedly.
I've even seen people
go running out the door.
They get nauseated.
I've even seen a couple of
them, you know, throw up.
Now, obviously, you believe that
there's something supernatural here.
Oh, without a doubt.
I think there's numerous spirits here.
Oh, oh. Oh, boy.
I don't like... I
don't like upstairs.
Lots of anxiety up here.
Lots of anxiety, lots of stress.
Like, it's... it's
kind of making me sick.
It's like making my stomach upset.
I feel nauseous.
Ooh. My goodness. Oh, my.
Really, really, really bad.
So, Ron, I understand
that you've done some work
in the building restoring it.
- Yes.
- Okay.
Quite a bit.
Have you had any experiences
that you can't explain?
When I was working here,
I got the sense that
I was gonna get killed.
An evil presence, like,
telling me get out of here.
Really?
Has anything else happened to you?
My tools would end up missing,
and then I started
getting really scared.
The hair on the back of my neck come up.
And nobody's here messing with you?
No.
And you still come down here.
I won't come down no more by myself.
- You don't?
- Nope.
Now, Ron, you don't strike me
as the type of guy that scares too easy.
Not too easy.
I was a boxer
and hard brick layer, a concrete man.
I'm not scared of much.
But this place seems to spook you out.
Yes, it's... it's
dangerous down here.
I honestly believe that.
Okay.
And then there's another lady.
She likes to torture people,
but she is one to move things.
Open and close doors, move
objects, [bleep] like that.
Can you describe her?
Her skin is like tree bark,
and her arms are twisted
like the roots of a tree.
But it's so weird how
each of these dead people
has very specific, physical things
that they do with the living.
It's almost like they've had
a dialogue, and they're, like,
"Well, I do this, so don't you dare."
What would all this
mean for the living here?
They would be, you know,
toys for the dead people.
Look, it doesn't take a
homicide detective to figure out
what my first move is here,
especially since Michael
and Travis's building
used to be a brothel.
I'm heading back to the Dumas
to meet with a local historian
who said life there was
everything you would expect
and worse.
Let's start from the beginning.
Who built this building and when?
The building was actually built
by Arthur and Joseph Nadeau.
This is a photograph of Joseph.
The brothers built
this building in 1890,
and they also built
other red-light properties
here in the district.
So, these guys were
pretty smart businessmen.
They were very well-educated brothers,
yes, and they were very wealthy.
Okay.
But the Nadeau brothers
apparently kind of separated.
We really don't know why.
And Joseph stayed around
and ran the business.
Okay.
So, now, what about Joseph?
Whatever happened to him?
Well, Joseph died in 1925 here in Butte.
Okay, now, how old was Joe when he died?
He was 77.
This guy, he's gonna
cause some [bleep] problems.
I've seen a lot of dead
people in this place,
but my biggest concern is the land owner
who attacks the living,
and I'm trying to get a
look into who he was in life.
He's super negative
and extremely greedy.
Like, disgustingly greedy.
Do you know what his
connection here might be?
I think he might have owned the land
and potentially built this building.
Can you describe him more?
He's very well educated and wealthy.
White hair, pal skin,
and I heard 1900 and 1901 for him.
There was a lot of movement
in here, a lot of traffic,
which benefited him with what he did.
He is really nasty.
The Nadeau
brothers opened this place
as a very high-end brothel.
Okay.
Very exclusive clients would come here
and spend as much as $1,000
a night on entertainment.
So, the girls who worked
here were pretty high-end?
They were very, very high-end girls.
They were supposedly
very, very beautiful.
You know, Ellen, I was down
in that basement yesterday,
and I got to be honest with you.
It didn't look too high end to me.
Yeah, it wasn't too high end.
You know, here's what happened.
The copper kings left Butte in 1900,
and so the business had to adjust.
The upper floor catered
to the upper class.
The ground floor catered
to more of a business class,
and the basement catered to
the miners and the laborers.
So, I got to imagine, just
looking at that basement,
the conditions had to be
really bad for these girls.
It probably wasn't a
pleasant place to work,
and the women charged
50 cents a customer
and maybe would service
50 men during a work shift.
The mines operated 24 hours a day,
and so did the women.
These miners had to be rough customers.
It was a really dangerous undertaking.
There was violence. There was addiction.
Alcohol, laudanum, opium.
There was the danger of pregnancy.
- It was a dangerous business.
- Right.
- There's no question about that.
- Wow.
Nothing is legitimate.
They all have perversions.
They're dirty, and they're angry,
so a bunch of perverted freaks.
I feel like there was a
lot of drugs and alcohol.
Like opium, like hash,
like marijuana, cocaine.
I see a lot of, like,
people laying down here.
Like, just laying around.
How many?
A lot.
I did hear mining.
Are you [bleep] kidding me?
I'm trying not to be negative,
but it's kind of impossible here
because this is not a good place.
This is a cycle. This is a cycle.
What?
Anybody who rents
maybe or buys this place
is not on the up-and-up.
I'm, like, what is wrong
with this [bleep] place?
If you need us to investigate
unexplained activity in your home,
Click on "Help me, Dead
Files!" to submit your story,
and we'll help if we can.
So far, I've got clients
who've been physically
assaulted on a property
that used to be ground
zero for sex and violence.
But I need to see if
there's anything else.
Digging through the archives,
I find a woman named Gertrude Pitkanen.
Turns out, she was charged with
three counts of manslaughter
after performing illegal abortions
in Butte's red-light district.
So, I made some calls, and it turns out,
it's very likely that
prostitutes from the Dumas
ended up going to this
illegal abortion doctor.
I'm heading over to meet
with a local professor
who says that this case
takes an even darker
and more horrifying twist.
So, what can you
tell me about this woman?
Her name was Gertrude Pitkanen.
Locals called her Gertie.
She ran a back-alley abortion clinic.
Now, would she have ever
done abortions at the Dumas?
Sure, absolutely.
Ladies that worked at the Dumas Brothel,
they got pregnant, they
didn't have a lot of options.
If you were pregnant,
and you were showing,
you were out of business.
But one of their best
options was Gertie.
- I read she got charged three times.
- Yes.
- What was the story behind that?
- Three charges.
Manslaughter, all three of
them, between 1929 and 1939.
Because of botched abortions.
The gals that she
performed the abortion on
died directly because of her services.
Here's their death certificates.
All right, so what was the
outcomes of these trials?
All three of those charges
were thrown out of court
due to a lack of evidence.
On the phone, you had mentioned
that this story had a dark turn to it.
I mean, how much darker could it get?
Pretty dark.
Some of these young mothers,
not wanting an abortion,
wanting to go full-term, were told
right after they had given
birth that the babies had died
when they actually hadn't.
They would be taken out the back door.
In some cases, with the
placenta still attached.
And Gertie would turn
around and sell those babies
on the black market.
14 we know of, possibly up to 28.
Going rate was about 500 bucks.
All right, so she's a piece
of [bleep] for doing this.
Yes, yes.
Out of Butte's beautiful history,
this is the black mark.
Why are there so many [bleep]
dead bodies laying around here?
How many?
A lot.
Majority men, but there are women,
and there are children, okay.
I'm seeing, like, a lot of kids.
Too many kids for one family.
It's almost like a daycare.
And something about these children,
like, they didn't have parents.
So, I almost wonder if they
were, like, selling these kids?
Like, drug dealers and
children sellers and pimps.
Oh, my God.
You got a brothel catering to
some pretty tough customers,
so I got to think, there had to be
a couple of homicides in there.
I called the Butte sheriff
who did some digging,
and he came up with
two suspicious deaths
that may help my case.
Sheriff, why did you want to meet here?
Well, this is the old city jail
where anybody who was
arrested in the area,
the red-light district,
would likely have come
had they been arrested.
Okay, now, you mentioned on the phone,
there were two suspicious
deaths connected to the Dumas.
Let's start with the first one.
Elinor Knott.
She was the madame at the Dumas Brothel
from 1950 to 1955 when she passed away.
Okay.
Her body was found on the second
floor of the Dumas Brothel.
I have Elinor's death
certificate right here.
It lists coronary occlusion
as the cause of her death.
Her heart disease had
progressed to where it was fatal.
She was young, though, 42.
She is relatively young to
have that kind of heart disease.
So, why was that
suspicious, do you think?
There was a woman named Bonita Farren
who took over as the
madame of the Dumas Brothel
after Elinor Knott passed away.
And there was a rumor that
Bonita may have had something
to do with Elinor Knott's death
so she could take over the brothel.
Now, you mentioned there was
a second suspicious death.
What was that?
Yeah, the second death
is Bonita Farren's husband, John Farren.
I have John Farren's death
certificate right here.
Cerebral hemorrhage.
Yeah, it appears that he
had fallen down the stairs,
and he was discovered at
the bottom of a staircase
near the rear of the brothel.
Yeah, I know that staircase pretty well.
That's quite a flight of stairs.
The doctor who signed the
death certificate believed
that alcohol was a contributing
factor to his death.
And it kind of connected
in a way, too, because...
Yeah, the link being Bonita Farren, yes.
Okay.
During my walk, I
encountered a very sexual woman.
I'm meeting with a
sketch artist to describe
what I saw her doing to a living male.
A male was laying in the bed,
and a female was
caressing the male's chest.
She had big brown eyes and
delicate facial features.
And she was kind of
standing beside the bed
looking down and touching him.
Is that what you saw?
Yes, that's what I saw.
Now that Amy and I have
completed our investigations,
we're ready to reveal
our findings to each other
and our clients for the first time.
Amy, I'd like you to
meet Michael and Travis.
Now, these guys are partners
in life and in business.
They bought this historic
building about three years ago,
but they feel like something
doesn't want them here.
But they're not the
ones that called us in.
This is Ginny. That's
Michael's best friend.
She also works here as a tour guide.
She believes that whatever's
here is changing Michael,
and she's worried that
he might be in danger.
So, now that Amy knows
a little bit about
what's going on with you guys,
I'm gonna ask her to
describe her walk for us.
When I first walked in the door,
I heard a male say, "Get out of here."
And I heard a woman call out, "whore".
I immediately got that
there was a lot of alcohol,
and then somebody was talking
about specific drug usage here.
Opium, hash, marijuana, and cocaine.
Well, let me tell you a
little bit about the building.
We're smack in the
middle of what used to be
Butte's red-light district.
This building operated as
a brothel from 1890 to 1982.
And there were competing
brothels all around this area.
I managed to track
down a couple of photos
from what used to be
behind this building here.
Now, as you can imagine, the
conditions for these women
had to be really bad, and
a lot of them turned to
alcohol and drugs, including opium.
Now, back in '82, the Dumas Brothel
was shut down and
neglected for a long time.
Michael stepped in, and he saved it.
Now, he's been renovating it
and turning it into
an historical museum.
Sometimes I think it's crazy.
We've put ourselves into
debt to try and restore it.
I don't know why. I
don't know what drew me.
I fell in love with
it when I entered it.
I felt that if someone
didn't step up to the plate
to take it over, it
would cease to exist.
Interesting.
The basement was extremely active.
Going down there, it's like shocking.
The majority of the people
I saw down there were men.
They seemed to have
interesting sexual proclivities.
They were all, like,
doing dirty business
and stuff like that.
I heard somebody talking about mining.
And then I was getting
punched. Punched in the stomach.
It's interesting you
talk about the basement.
Nobody likes the basement at all.
And Ginny, tell her how you
feel like when you're down there,
it's like a terrible feeling for you.
All the time, I
feel like I'm being watched.
In fact, I was chased up the stairs,
and I don't know what
I was being chased by.
Well, let me explain
why you might have seen
some of those things in the basement.
Each level of the Dumas catered
to a different clientele.
Top floor was for the high echelon.
The main floor was, you
know, middle-class-type guys.
But the basement was for the miners.
Now, it was a nasty place.
From what I was told, from an expert,
they would service up
to maybe 50 guys a day.
The other thing that I saw down
there was a lot of children.
They weren't particularly cared for,
so I'm thinking they
didn't have parents.
Then I ran into this guy.
He was definitely like
a pimp and a drug runner,
and I was feeling like maybe
he also sold the children.
That's interesting.
From the 1920s through the 1950s,
a woman named Gertie Pitkanen
and her husband, Gustavus,
ran what they called a maternity clinic
a couple blocks from here.
What she really ran
was an abortion clinic.
Now, if a prostitute got
pregnant here at the Dumas,
you know, they had two choices.
Either get an abortion,
or you're out of work.
Okay.
Now, Gertie Pitkanen was performing
these back-alley abortions,
and they were very dangerous.
Over a 10-year period,
she wound up getting
charged three different times
for manslaughter.
I actually was able to get a
hold of the death certificates
here of three young ladies who died
as a result of botched abortions.
Oh, my goodness.
But she was never convicted.
Now, you mentioned
something about selling kids.
Yes.
Gertie, on at least 14
documented occasions,
was telling mothers that
their babies were stillborn
and then taking those
babies that were alive
and selling them for
$500 on the black market.
Wow.
They're known as Gertie's babies.
I met two women in here.
The first one I encountered
in one of the bedrooms,
and she creeped me out because
of the way that she looked.
Her skin looks like tree bark.
Her arms were really
long but, like, twisted,
and her fingers looked like tree roots.
So, it was very bizarre.
She is able to move objects
and open and close doors.
She's the one who can do
little things like that.
Talking about moving objects.
They had a guy named Ron
that's a brick mason working down there.
Ginny, tell 'em how
his stuff goes missing.
Stuff moves on its own down there.
He'll lay it down, and he'll
go he know he put it there.
And he'll go back to
get it, and it's gone.
It usually takes about twice
as long to do any work in here
because you spend half the time
just trying to find the
materials or the tools
because as soon as you turn
your back, they're gone.
That's, like up her alley, so.
Wow.
So, I met another lady.
I guess you could call
her, like, a nymphomaniac.
Considering where we
are, I'm not shocked.
She's interested in
younger, muscular men,
and she likes to touch people
inappropriately and sexually.
I did have a sketch done of her.
She was trying to seduce me.
It was shortly after
we bought the building,
and I was cleaning up all the cobwebs.
All of a sudden, I felt this
really warm hand on my shoulder.
Along with it, there was
really warm, gentle breath
across my neck.
So, do you think
she was a prostitute here?
Yeah, and I think she
very much enjoyed her job.
I mean, is it a threat to them?
Well, I think that being molested
in the middle of the night
would maybe be a problem.
So, what else is going on?
I met this guy.
He is a very dominant personality here,
and he concerns me a great deal.
He was not happy that I was here.
He's a very, very negative person.
People might see him as an elderly man,
or they see, like, a fog,
gray or a black fog.
I kept referring to him
as the landowner guy.
He goes everywhere,
but he does like to
hang out in the basement.
He is very physical.
If he doesn't like you,
he'll do things like
pushing, shoving, pinching.
If he really doesn't like somebody,
he'll become even more violent.
He'll actually, like,
try to smother people.
And when he does that, it's
because he wants to kill them.
Now, you got shoved in the
face. Tell Amy what happened.
Ginny and
myself came in one night
and walked down the hall there,
and it just full force, fwoof,
and it knocked me backward.
Ginny was right behind
me, and I think she said,
"What the [bleep] was that?"
Now, she goes home with
bruises all the time.
I do go home with bruises
once in a while, yes, I do.
And it's other people... some
of the people on the tours.
Interesting.
Now, you mentioned something
about a mist, a shadow?
Now, you guys reported.
We see mists in here, you bet.
Do you feel threatened
sometimes by these incidents?
Yes.
There's been a few times I've left.
Do you have any idea who this
guy might have been in life?
Well, when he was alive,
he was very, very greedy.
I got that he was the boss.
Hmm.
I think that he was the first owner.
I think he possibly had something to do
with the building of this place.
There was a lot of business,
which he benefited greatly from.
And I got the years 1900 and
1901 specifically for him.
All right, so let me tell
you about the original owner
and see if we have a match.
His name was Joseph Nadeau,
and he built this building
as a brothel in 1890.
Oh!
And he opened up until he died in 1925.
The guy was a shrewd businessman.
He didn't own just this brothel.
He owned several brothels
in the neighborhood.
Now, I got a photo of him.
Okay.
This is very interesting.
When you guys first arrived,
I was looking at you.
And I was, like, looks really familiar.
What do you think about him?
It makes me shake.
It makes my heart pound,
and it makes my gut hurt.
But do you feel like any kind of,
I don't know, attachment?
I think that I have
a duty here to...
Fulfill something, I don't know what it is.
I bought it the first
day I set foot in there.
'Cause you already owned it.
What the hell are you talking about?
You're this person.
So, you're telling me that
Michael is Joseph Nadeau.
Do you feel, like, any kind
of, I don't know, attachment?
I think that I have a duty
here to fulfill something,
I don't know what it is.
I bought it the first
day I set foot in there.
'Cause you already owned it.
What the hell are you talking about?
You're this person.
So, you're telling me that
Michael is Joseph Nadeau.
Yes.
Was he reincarnated?
Yes.
Whoa.
From the moment
I laid eyes on Michael,
I knew there was something
very familiar about him,
and when he talked about his
obsession with the brothel,
I got even more suspicious.
But when I saw the picture
of the original owner,
it all clicked.
It looks like an older
version of Michael.
Yeah, especially around the eyes.
He looks like my grandfather.
I felt something, though. I knew.
I knew it, but I don't want to feel like
some deceased person, some
spirit, some entity saying,
"You need to do my bidding."
It's not like you're
doing anybody's bidding.
This is you.
This is blowing me away.
I mean, this is one of these
cases I'm gonna walk away from,
and it's gonna be in the back
of my head for a long time.
I'm, like, nervous for
you. I'm scared for you.
I'm in awe of this. I'm
I'm, like, speechless.
My question to you is, though,
do you believe you're this guy?
Yes.
How else do you explain any of it?
Needless to say, this is probably one of
the most unusual cases
that we've worked on.
Now we got to answer the big question.
Is it safe for you to stay here?
According to Amy, for the second time,
and fix this place up?
So for that answer, I'm
gonna turn it over to Amy
and see what she has to say.
Right now, the situation
is not particularly healthy.
Your soul isn't complete
because you're continuing
a life that you had before.
What I think is going on is
that sometimes, when people die,
the soul in its entirety
doesn't completely move on.
So it'll shatter sometimes.
When Joseph died, his soul split.
One piece remained here
in the form of the old man,
and the other became you.
So, what I want you to
do is to find a person
who is a reiki master who has
the ability to collect souls.
And what she does is
absorb them into herself,
and then she releases them.
So, your former self that's here,
she needs to collect that soul,
then needs to move that soul on.
Okay.
One thing I'm a little confused about.
If she takes Nadeau with her,
is he still reincarnated Joe Nadeau?
Yes, but once he moves on,
you may not have an interest
anymore in this place
and completely relinquish that fixation.
Now, what about the
tree lady and the nympho?
What about those people?
The reiki master will be
able to move them on, as well.
Okay.
This stuff is fascinating
when you think about it.
All the pieces, you know,
to this fit together.
Definitely.
I feel like a whole
weight has...
It's like I felt when I
walked in here the first time,
how it took my breath away.
I feel like I can breathe again.
It's gonna be quite the journey.