Ghostly

Content advisory: This episode discusses several deaths by suicide in the Lemp family. If you or someone you love is struggling, call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (U.S.), any time.

Is the Lemp Mansion Haunted?

In this episode, Ghostly heads to the Lemp Mansion, and we have a special guest. Kyle Maiden spent the night at the Lemp while driving Route 66 across the country, and he tells us what happened after the last staff member went home. Pat tells us the sad history of the Lemp family.

Special Guest: Kyle Maiden

Kyle Maiden is the founder of Picard, Projiq, and HUMAN Project Delivery, an innovator in project management delivery, and the host of Project Management After Dark. On a cross-country trip down Route 66, which once ran right through St. Louis, he booked a night at the Lemp Mansion. He came back with stories, and he shares them with us on this episode.

Follow Kyle on Instagram: @kyle.maiden

The History

German immigrant Johann Adam Lemp arrived in St. Louis in 1838 and is credited with bringing lager beer to the city. His son William built the Lemp Brewery into the largest in St. Louis and bought the mansion at 3322 DeMenil Place, connected by tunnel to the family’s lagering caves. Then tragedy took over. Favorite son Frederick died at 28 in 1901, and William Sr. shot himself in his bedroom in 1904. Daughter Elsa died by suicide in 1920. Prohibition shut the brewery, which sold at auction in 1922 for a fraction of its worth, and that December William Jr. shot himself in his office, in the same house where his father died. Charles Lemp, the last of the family to live there, followed in 1949. The mansion became a run-down boarding house until the Pointer family bought it in 1975 and turned it into a restaurant and inn. In 1980, Life magazine named it one of the most haunted houses in America. In September 2026, the Pointers put it up for sale. It stays open through December 2027.

The Hauntings

The Lavender Lady — William Jr.’s ex-wife Lillian, who wore nothing but lavender. Guests report a purple apparition, the scent of lavender by her portrait, and a smoky silhouette of a woman caught on film in the bar doorway.

Charles and his dog — the last Lemp, still said to walk the halls with his Doberman. Investigators asked, “Is there anyone here with us?” and caught a dog barking on the recording.

The man with the key — a 2004 tour group found a guest room standing open with a key in the lock, then remembered passing a pale older man with a key in the hallway. No one like him was working or staying there that night.

The peeping ghost in the ladies’ room — William Jr.’s old private bathroom, where women still report a man looking over the top of the stall.

The house that wouldn’t let anyone stay — boarders hearing knocks and footsteps, renovation workers who walked off the job, and staff who watch glasses fly off the bar and hear the piano play by itself.

Rebecca also has a first-person story from the attic, and Kyle tells us about his own night in the mansion. Tune in for both.

Music & Sound Credits

Music performed by Michael Rivers. “Pat Facts” and “Ghost Story” themes by Mondo. “Time for a Debate” theme by Gail Gallagher — gailgallaghermusic.com

Listener Mail

Email info@ghostlypodcast.com or the contact form at GhostlyPodcast.com, or write us at PO Box #264, Geneva, IL 60134.

Support the Show

Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, or join us on Patreon at GhostlyPodcast.com (tiers from $1–$10).

Next Time on Ghostly

Haunted Murder Houses continues with the LaLaurie Mansion — new episode airs 10/21/2026. Stay Ghostly.

Tags: #GhostlyPodcast #LempMansion #HauntedStLouis #HauntedMissouri #Route66 #HauntedMurderHouses #ParanormalPodcast #TrueHauntings #HauntedHistory #GhostStories

Sources

History

History of the Lemp Mansion — Lemp Mansion (Official Site)

The Haunted Lemp Mansion in St. Louis — Legends of America

St. Louis’ Haunted and Historic Lemp Mansion Is for Sale — St. Louis Public Radio

St. Louis’ Haunted Lemp Mansion Is for Sale, but Stays Open Through 2027 — Haunted Attraction Network

Hauntings & Paranormal Reports

The Lemp Mansion — Prairie Ghosts (Troy Taylor)

Lemp Mansion Haunted History — KSDK 5 On Your Side

This Is What It’s Like to Take a Ghost Tour of the Lemp Mansion with a Psychic — St. Louis Magazine

Lemp Mansion Investigation — Aislinn Marshall

Lemp Mansion EVPs — Aislinn Marshall (SoundCloud)

The Lemp Mansion — Dread Central

Local Haunted House Offers Real Thrills and Chills — Lancer Feed

Ghost Photographed at Notoriously Haunted Mansion in St. Louis? — Coast to Coast AM

America’s Most Haunted Bathrooms — Roadtrippers

Syfy — Ghost Hunters Season 6 Episode Recap, “Lemp Mansion”

Is the Villisca Axe House Haunted?

Content advisory: This episode discusses a real mass murder in which six children were killed, plus violence, death, and a 2014 self-harm incident. If you or someone you love is struggling, call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (U.S.), any time.

On a Sunday night in June 1912, eight people went to sleep in a modest two-story house in Villisca, Iowa, and none of them woke up. More than a century later, the case is still unsolved, the house is still standing, and you can still book a night inside. Kicking off our October series, Haunted Murder Houses, Rebecca follows the children who never stopped playing, while Pat lays out the suspect list: a confession that got taken back, a state senator with a grudge, and a hired man with a payroll alibi. You decide: genuine haunting, or entirely senseless talk?

The History

In 1912, Villisca was a small railroad town of about 2,000 people with nearly 30 trains stopping every day. On June 9, Josiah and Sarah Moore, their four children (Herman, Katherine, Boyd, and Paul), and two young overnight guests, sisters Lena and Ina Stillinger, came home from the Children’s Day program at the Presbyterian church. Sometime after midnight, someone entered the house with Joe Moore’s own axe and killed all eight. Mirrors and windows were draped, faces were covered, and the killer slipped out before dawn. Townspeople trampled the crime scene, and the suspects followed: state senator Frank Jones, the hired man William “Blackie” Mansfield, and the traveling preacher Rev. George Kelly, who confessed, recanted, and was acquitted in 1917. No one was ever convicted. Restored to its 1912 appearance in the 1990s and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997, the house is now open for tours and overnight stays.

The Hauntings

The children who never stopped playing — balls that roll across the kids’ room on their own, and doors that bang shut, according to former owner Darwin Linn. When WHO Radio’s Van and Bonnie spent the night, three balls “just took off all in different directions.”

The man with the axe — in 1930, newlywed Bonnie Ritner said she saw a man holding an axe at the foot of her bed. Visitors have reported the same “shadow man” ever since.

Lena’s closet — a closet door that banged behind Darwin Linn as he carried guests’ coins downstairs, and a 1999 investigator who called the house “borderline demonic.”

Footsteps on the stairs — ordinary overnight guests hearing someone climb the stairs and walk overhead when nobody else was in the house. “But we knew what we heard.”

The night things got real — a 2014 overnight that ended in an emergency, and the longtime caretaker who stopped staying the night afterward.

Music Credits

Music performed by Michael Rivers.

“Pat Facts” and “Ghost Story” themes by Mondo.

“Time for a Debate” theme by Gail Gallagher — gailgallaghermusic.com

Weigh In

Got a ghost story? Call or text us. Hear the phone number on the episode. You might hear it on the show. Vote by texting the episode title with YES (believer) or NO (skeptic), plus a haunting score from 1–10.

Listener Mail

Email info@ghostlypodcast.com or the contact form at GhostlyPodcast.com, or write us at PO Box #264, Geneva, IL 60134.

Support the Show

Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, or join us on Patreon at GhostlyPodcast.com (tiers from $1–$10).

Sources

History

The Ax Murderer Who Got Away — Smithsonian Magazine

Villisca axe murders — Wikipedia

Josiah B. and Sara Moore House — Wikipedia

The Villisca Axe Murders — Iowa Cold Cases

Henry Lee Moore — Wikipedia

The Man from the Train — Wikipedia

Hauntings & Paranormal Reports

Villisca Axe Murder House — US Ghost Adventures (official site)

Ax Murder House — Sioux City Journal

Van and Bonnie Spend the Night at the Villisca Ax Murder House — WHO 13

Team of Ghost Hunters Investigate Infamous Villisca Axe Murder House — KETV

My Experience at the Villisca Ax Murder House — JHS Black & White

Strange Occurrences Abound at the Villisca Ax Murder House — Roadtrippers

Why Did a Ghost Hunter Stab Himself Inside a Famous Axe-Murder House? — VICE

The Time a Ghost Hunter Stabbed Himself at My Axe Murder Museum — VICE

It's one of the most impressive train stations ever built in America, and for most of its life, it's been standing completely empty. This episode, Rebecca tracks down the spirits who never left Buffalo's Central Terminal, while Pat digs into how a building this grand ended up abandoned for over forty years. You decide: genuine haunting, or entirely senseless talk?

Is Mary King’s Close Edinburgh’s Most Haunted Street?

Beneath a grand 18th-century stone building on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile — one that gives no hint of what’s underneath — sits an entire street frozen in time. Rooms, staircases, even fireplaces, sealed beneath the foundations when the Royal Exchange went up in 1753. Mary King’s Close was home to merchants, tradespeople, and, in 1645, some of the city’s worst plague victims. Today it’s one of the most investigated haunted sites in the UK, and almost every tour still ends in the same small stone room, in front of a pile of children’s toys.

This week, Rebecca walks through Wee Annie, the EVP session at Andrew Chesney’s house, the Coltheart family’s disembodied limbs, a namesake ghost caught on infrared, and a real University of Edinburgh study that found something genuinely hard to explain — while Pat digs into who Mary King actually was, what Edinburgh’s Old Town was really like, and why the close’s most famous “true story” doesn’t hold up to the historical record. Is Mary King’s Close genuinely haunted, or is four centuries of plague, poverty, and marketing doing a very convincing impression of one? You decide.

What We Cover in This Episode

The History (with Pat):

Who Mary King really was — a 1630s textile merchant and one of the few women in 17th-century Scotland to hold full burgess rights

What Edinburgh’s Old Town actually looked like: 8-to-12-story tenements, no sanitation, and a city crammed onto one narrow ridge

The 1645 plague outbreak that devastated the close — and why the popular “300 people sealed in with a named plague doctor” story doesn’t hold up against the historical record

How the Royal Exchange was built directly on top of the close in 1753, sealing it underground for 250 years

Andrew Chesney, the close’s last documented resident, forced out between 1897 and 1902

The Real Mary King’s Close opening to the public in 2003 after years of restoration

The Hauntings (with Rebecca):

Evidence #1 — Wee Annie: Japanese psychic Aiko Gibo’s 1990s encounter that turned one small room into the close’s signature haunting — and its ever-growing pile of donated dolls

Evidence #2 — Andrew Chesney’s House: an EVP session that allegedly caught his voice telling investigators to “just get out”

Evidence #3 — The Coltheart Family: a 17th-century lawyer’s household terrorized by a disembodied arm, a phantom child, and a vanishing dog

Evidence #4 — Mary King Herself: an infrared photograph said to show the close’s own namesake still walking her old street

Evidence #5 — The University of Edinburgh’s Haunting Experiment: a real 2001 academic study that found a statistically significant gap between “haunted” and “ordinary” sections of the close

Weigh the Evidence

As always, it’s not up to us, it’s up to YOU. After listening, text us the episode title, add YES if you’re a believer or NO if you’re a skeptic, and give it a haunting score from 1 to 10.

(312) 869-9929

Or head to our social pages and tell us which piece of evidence convinced you — and which one Pat managed to talk you out of.

Music Credits

Music for this episode was performed by Michael Rivers.

“Pat Facts” and “Ghost Story” themes by Mondo.

“Time for a Debate” theme by Gail Gallagher — gailgallaghermusic.com

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Sources for This Week’s Episode

Mary King (merchant) — Wikipedia

Mary King’s Close — Wikipedia

Edinburgh City Chambers — Wikipedia

Edinburgh: The Old Town — Britannica

The Eerily Abandoned 17th-Century Streets of Edinburgh — History Skills

Lost Edinburgh: The Great Plague of 1645 — The Scotsman

Eerily Fascinating Mary King’s Close in Line for Tourism Award — Edinburgh News

The Plague in Scotland — National Library of Scotland

The Real Mary King’s Close — Official Site

Who Was Mary King? — Real Mary King’s Close Blog

Edinburgh’s Plague Doctor: The True Story — Real Mary King’s Close Blog

Mary King’s Close — Atlas Obscura

400 Years of History, Previously Buried — Traveling Boy

Mary King’s Close — Exploring GB

Mary King’s Close — Introducing Edinburgh

Haunted Edinburgh: The Ghostly Spectres That Still Walk Mary King’s Close Today — Edinburgh News

The Ghosts of Mary King’s Close — Spooky Isles

The Ghosts of Mary King’s Close, Edinburgh — Haunted Rooms

Ghost Finders Scotland Investigation — Ghost Club

The Ghosts of Mary King’s Close — The Scotsman

The Haunting Experiment of Edinburgh Castle (Wiseman/Watt study) — Association of Paranormal Study

Mary King’s Close — Ghostwatch

Is Preston Castle Haunted?

In this episode of Ghostly, we head to the tiny Gold Rush town of Ione, California, to explore Preston Castle — a red-brick, Romanesque Revival reform school with a dark past and a reputation as one of the West Coast’s most active haunted locations. Built to correct troubled boys, the castle instead became the site of beatings, escapes, and at least one unsolved murder. Decades after it closed, staff, tour guides, and paranormal investigators all say the same thing: it never really emptied out.

History of Preston Castle

Established in 1890 by the California State Legislature as a progressive reform school for juvenile offenders; the cornerstone was laid December 23, 1890, in front of roughly 2,500 spectators

Built in the Romanesque Revival style — considered the finest example of that style in the Mother Lode — using bricks manufactured at San Quentin and Folsom prisons from locally quarried sandstone

The first wards were accepted June 13, 1894, and the school officially opened July 1, 1894; electricity arrived the following year via a water-wheel-powered Pelton dynamo

At its peak, the school held around 800 wards, employed 200 staff, and worked roughly 1,000 acres of surrounding farmland across some 50 buildings

Discipline behind the scenes was harsh: public lashings, isolation, military-style drills, and “dunking baths” meant to treat lice were all part of daily life for the boys sent here

The school closed in 1960 when the state opened newer facilities, and the castle sat vacant and deteriorating for more than 40 years

Local preservationists fought off demolition; the nonprofit Preston Castle Foundation leased the property in 2001 and took full ownership in 2014

Today it’s a California Historical Landmark (#867) and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, with the Foundation running public tours and events on-site

Reported Paranormal Activity

Visitors, staff, and investigators have reported disembodied footsteps and voices, sudden temperature drops, physical touches ranging from a light brush to a hard poke, and cameras or recorders draining batteries or glitching with no explanation. It’s earned Preston Castle a spot on nearly every “most haunted place in California” list out there.

The Ghost of Anna Corbin

The castle’s most well-known haunting centers on Anna Corbin, the head housekeeper who was like a mother figure to the boys at Preston. In February 1950, she was beaten and strangled in a basement storeroom. Three separate trials followed — and nobody was ever convicted. Locals believe her spirit still can’t leave, and that she’s the one still walking the basement, and the halls, checking on “her boys.”

The Infirmary

Widely considered the most consistently active room in the building. The infirmary treated wards who fell ill, and some — including 8-year-old Grant Walker and 20-year-old Nicholas Hamilton — never left. Visitors report figures standing at the infirmary windows that vanish the moment they’re noticed, along with faint voices and movement in a room that should be empty.

The Basement

Beyond Anna’s room, the basement as a whole has a reputation as the heaviest, most unsettling part of the castle — cold spots with no source, shadow figures along the walls, and a dread so strong some investigators refuse to go down at all.

On Camera: The Ghost Adventures Investigation

When the Ghost Adventures crew investigated Preston Castle, they captured EVPs including “I don’t know,” “talk,” and “get out of here,” along with mist and orbs moving near their own heads on camera. More than one crew member came out of the basement with fresh, unexplained scratches — and Zak Bagans reportedly behaved so differently down there that the rest of the crew wondered if he’d been influenced by Anna herself.

Spirits of the Wards

Some of the castle’s activity is tied to the boys who lived — and in some cases died — here. Reports include child-like laughter with no children around, faint crying, and small shadow figures darting through the halls. Two names recur often in the lore: Sam Goins and Herman Huber, both shot by guards during separate escape attempts in the early 1900s.

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#GhostlyPodcast #PrestonCastle #IoneCalifornia #CaliforniaGhosts #Paranormal #HauntedHistory #HauntedReformSchool #SpookyTravel

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Music for this episode was performed by Michael Rivers

“Pat Facts” and “Ghost Story” themes by Mondo

“Time for a Debate” theme by Gail Gallagher gailgallaghermusic.com

Sources for this week’s episode

Preston Castle Foundation — History

Preston Castle Foundation — Tours

The Harsh, Eerie History of Preston Castle — Merced County Times

The Preston Castle: A Tragic Blend of Mystery, History, and Horror — Calexplornia

Historic Haunt — San Joaquin Magazine

Preston Castle — Haunted US

Preston Castle Ghost Stories and History — BeyondHaunted.com

The History of Preston Castle — Paranormal Legacy

Preston Castle (episode) — Ghost Adventures Wiki

Preston Castle: A Paranormal Investigator’s Paradise — 209 Magazine

Preston Castle — Haunted Reform School — Hauntpedia

Ghost Hunt: Preston Castle in Ione, California — Ghostly Activities