In late April 2012, an anonymous phone call was placed to Indiana’s Department of Children’s Services in which claims of neglect and child abuse were reported against a Gary, Indiana woman named Latoya Ammons. DCS Case Manager Valerie Washington was assigned to investigate the claims reported, but nothing in her training was about to prepare her for the demonic activity to come.
History of the Ammons House Hauntings
Beginning six months prior in November 2011, Latoya Ammons, a single mother of three children, along with her mother Rosa Campbell, moved into a small and nearly one-hundred-year-old house on Gary’s southeastern side city limits. In similar fashion to the Amityville Horror, the Ammons troubles began when they moved into the home and found it was infested with swarms of black flies. Weeks passed as attempts were made to properly fumigate when the children reported seeing a shadow man moving between the bedrooms. Shoe prints from an oversized boot were soon found throughout the home.
As the months began to pass into 2012, mounting tension grew within the house. Fighting and destructive behavior began to occur frequently among the children. No room in the home was truly free from the constant noises caused by the children. In the basement, a dirt floor was discovered under the stairs, but that was not enough to sway Latoya and her mother from putting the washer and dryer for the household laundry down there. Mounting cold spots were known to form at an instant and then dissipate in the basement along with the rest of the home.
To combat the feelings of constant negativity, the Ammons family turned to nearby Protestant clergymen to come to the house for a blessing. Upon the finished blessing, the activity increased to a continuous loud bang, dark shadows prowling the home, and the children brutalizing one another. Police were dispatched to the home often for noise complaints, and Gary Police Captain Charles Austin, a hardened twenty plus year veteran of the force, was so shaken after one visit to the home, he refrained from further visits unless accompanied by more officers.
State of Indiana Intake Officer’s Report
Late April 2012, is when the call for help was made to the outside world. DCS Case Manager Washington was briefed on the case after Latoya had taken the children to their pediatrician in a weak attempt to diagnose their increasingly violent behaviors. The doctor, in turn, referred them to the local emergency room after it was reported that objects at the doctor’s office briefly levitated and were thrown against walls by an unseen force. Immediately they were taken to the local emergency room, and doctors quickly assessed the children and placed them in a psychiatric wing right there at Northlake Hospital.
While interviewing the children separately, a nurse, hospital official, and Washington herself all personally witnessed loud and aggressive growls from the middle child in particular. The other two children were reported to have unnaturally deep voices and bulging eyes within their sockets. Unfazed by the attempted psychological assessment and medical intervention, all three adults then personally witnessed the middle child walk upright unassisted against a hospital wall up to the ceiling and then backflip down behind them at a height of an estimated twenty feet!
State of Indiana Intake Officer’s Report
After a dizzying weekend of analyzation, medication, and mental therapies of all kinds given to Latoya, her mother, and all three children, the hospital and DCS Case Manager Washington found absolutely no evidence of abuse or mental handicap of any kind. Desperate for any answer as financial obstacle prevented her from moving to a different home, Latoya then chose to reach out to the local psychic community for clues to her ever-worsening situation. An anonymous clairvoyant visited the home, and despite burning sage and covering doorways in blessed oils, they ended up leaving and informing Latoya they could feel the presence of over two hundred demons occupying the home!
Zak Bagans goes to the Ammons House
Local news stations picked up on haunted home and stories about the situation went viral. It was not long before help arrived in the form of Father Michael Maginot, a local Catholic exorcist. Father Maginot of St. Stephen, the Martyr Church, had been tipped off by the Northlake Hospital chaplain who explained the dire situation troubling the Ammons family. After a somewhat minor blessing of the children and the home, Father Maginot gained approval for a full exorcism with permission from Bishop Dale Melczeck in June 2012. Collectively it took three full exorcisms to free Latoya and the children from the evil that had taken over their lives.
Wishing to start their lives over and away from the house, Latoya ended up leaving the home. It was purchased by another family who reported no further demonic activity. In early 2014, the unnamed owners sold the house for $35,000 to paranormal expert, Ghost Adventures host, Zak Bagans. Purchasing the home with the intent to discover and expose the notorious paranormal activity, it ended up being displayed in a highly controversial documentary, Demon House.
