This week’s Ghost Brothers on TLC investigates the Winchester Mystery House — said to be haunted by the ghosts of people killed by Winchester rifles.
The property in San Jose, California, was once home to Sarah Winchester, gun magnate William Wirt Winchester’s widow.
She is said to have moved there and after both he and her infants son died, and a medium told her that to keep herself alive she should leave her home in New Haven, Connecticut, and move west.
The home was to be not only for her but also for the souls of those killed by the rifles made by her husband’s family firm, and she was said to have been told that if she ever stopped building it she would face the same fate as her husband and son.
The house was then built and continuously remodelled throughout her life, with construction said to have taken place non-stop — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year — for 38 years.
Historian Janan Boehme tells the Ghost Brothers, Dalen Spratt, Juwan Mass, and Marcus Harvey how she would come up with ideas for what to build next in the building’s seance room.
Dalen explains: “Every night at midnight, the bells in the tower would ring in order to summon the spirits and Sarah would begin her seance.
“According to legend, this is how Sarah obtained most of her construction plans, which were passed on to her devoted staff who were part of her inner circle.”
Sarah was apparently obsessed with the number 13 and it has been worked into the property in various guises in several locations.
During the episode, the guys also head to a rifle range to see what it is like to fire a Winchester rifle, the very type of gun said to have killed the people whose spirits haunt the property.
Ghost Brothers airs Fridays at 10/9c on TLC.