Imagine finding and buying your dream home. And then it turned out that there used to be a cemetery on the site of your site.
In 1982, Sam and Judith Haney found their ideal home in the Newport area of Houston, Texas. They were not interested in the history of this place, so they immediately stopped in and began to settle down in a new place.
When a year later, the couple decided to dig a pool in their backyard, a strange man appeared at the door of their house. He said that the remains of the dead lying in this area should not be disturbed. Sam and Judith thought it was a local crazy and did not attach importance to his words.
Imagine their surprise when, starting to work, Sam really came across two pine coffins, in which lay two shabby skeletons with wedding rings on his fingers. Haney immediately called the police and the coroner.
An unpleasant truth
An investigation has begun. During a conversation with the elderly Dr. Jasper Norton, it turned out that until 1939 there was a cemetery for blacks called "Black Hope". Later, the workers of the construction company simply swept away all the "identification marks".
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It was even possible to identify the identity of the two discovered skeletons - they belonged to the spouses Charlie and Betty Thomas - freed slaves who died in 1930.
Sam and Judith decided not to transfer the remains to the cemetery, but to reburial them in their original place, planting flowers on top. In addition, they summoned a priest to pray for the repose of the rest. But this did not help - the disturbed spirits began to actively manifest themselves.
Strange phenomena
Soon, Judith Haney began to notice how household appliances turn on and off by themselves. Even if it is not connected to electricity.
Someone walked around the house, turned on the water, opened the sliding doors in the shower and mumbled indistinctly.
One day, Judith opened a closet looking for her favorite red shoes, but she couldn't find them. A couple of hours later, she found them at the site of the grave. That day was Betty Thomas's birthday …
But Haney wasn't the only one who witnessed unexplained phenomena.
Their neighbors, Ben and Jean Williams, also fell victim to the Black Hope curse.
It all started when coffin-shaped gaps began to appear in their yard. They covered them with earth, but everything was repeated over and over again. All the plants near their home died.
Inside the house, strange sounds were heard, ghostly figures appeared and a putrid smell was clearly felt. Some rooms felt terribly cold. Soon after, their thirty-year-old daughter died of a heart attack.
The Williams and Haney went to court.
Outcome
They sued the developer company, accusing it of hiding the fact that there was a cemetery on the site of their homes.
The court awarded them compensation for moral suffering in the amount of $ 142,000. However, the company's lawyer managed to cut the payment by almost three times.
The received $ 50,000 did not even cover the legal costs. The Williams family went bankrupt.
Both families left their homes and never returned.
Interestingly, the new tenants did not complain about the otherworldly neighbors. Apparently, over time, the curse of "Black Hope" came to naught.