INTERVIEW — TAPE #2, SIDE #1
Q: Mark Gordon Russell (interviewer)
M: Maxine Mc Wethy (the mother)
T: Twyla Eller (daughter)
B: Brenda Bell (daughter)
K: Kim Carrell (daughter)
F: Marla Ward (nicknamed Fae; daughter)
H: Heather Bell (Kim's daughter)
Y: Megan Eller (Twyla's daughter)
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: I TURN ON THE TAPE RECORDER WHEN WE AGAIN BEGIN TALKING ABOUT BILL’S CONDITION. THE INTERVIEW IS OCCASIONALLY INTERRUPTED BY DISTRACTIONS POSED BY MAXINE’S GRANDCHILDREN.)
T: No cancer or anything.
Q: He’s not one of the Bell family, at least. That’s something.
K: He sits and continually drinks big glasses of water and they say he’s dehydrated.
T: Constantly.
Q: Oh my God.
M: He’s drying out inside.
K: There’s no way. There is no way.
Q: One of the things I said to you right away — I said, “Has anyone had any trouble eating or drinking?” I told you that.
T: Oh gosh. You didn’t think about that when he said that, did you?
Q: This is a classic, classic scenario. The inability to drink has been traced back to the witches of all the olden days. They called it witchcraft back then.
T: Oh gosh.
Q: The inability to drink is demonic possession and witchcraft.
F: I wish I had the inability.
T: I wish I had the inability to eat.
F: (laughs)
Q: They have a new enzyme that’s coming out.
T: I saw that.
Q: They have an enzyme that they found in mice that changes your metabolism rate.
F: Yes, I saw that.
K: But you have to take it for the rest of your life, they say.
Q: Yeah, but a lot of people are standing in line. (small laugh) I think this is related. The inability to drink.
M: I may run.
K: It’s not an inability to drink, though. He drinks.
Q: It disappears. After going in.
K: Oh.
Q: It goes somewhere else.
T: That’s why he drinks so much then?
M: Oh no.
Q: I’m just saying this is a pattern in other cases. I don’t know what’s going on with Bill.
B: Unusual.
F: What will happen if it keeps on like that?
Q: What do you think?
T: Is something trying to kill him?
Q: That’s what it looks like to me.
M: That’s what I said. “I bet he’s going to be the next one.”
Q: The nerves, too, is another classic symptom.
M: Your kids. Do something with your kids.
T: Mine’s not here. She’s not doing nothing.
Q: Shhhhhh. The kids are just spooked by this house. Yet it’s not enough to really upset someone I don’t think.
M: If only they stopped bugging Bill.
B: I think that’s what kids like that are for.
Q: Furthermore, people are sort of accusing Twyla of doing it without knowing it. That’s a big weight to have on someone’s shoulders.
T: Yeah.
Q: It must be very uncomfortable for you to deal with it all. (“IT IS”) Do you ever think, “What if I am in some way responsible and can’t control it?” Have you ever thought that? And feel almost guilty? There’s no way of knowing.
T: They think I’m psychic too.
Q: I know people who think they’re psychic.
T: I don’t think that.
Q: You know you’re psychic.
T: No, I don’t think that I am but other people always seem to.
Q: Have you ever known something is going to happen before it happened? (“EHH”)
T: Yeah.
Q: Well, people do that generally, though. That doesn’t mean you’re psychic.
T: I told my husband when I first met him, —
Q: Love at first sight. (“YEAH”)
T: — “We’ll get married. You will become a cop and we will live in a town that starts with P.” And we got married and we lived in the town where he was a cop and it was Paden. My husband thinks I’m psychic too. (“AND WHAT DID”)
Q: And what did the entity say about your marriage and about him?
T: It didn’t really.
Q: It didn’t say anything.
T: But he does like Steve. They really like him. (“WHAT DID HE SAY”)
Q: How do you know that? What did it say exactly? If you can remember. (“NO”) I guess it’s hard to remember exactly what it said.
T: Yeah, it is.
M: I’ll tell you something else. I went with Twyla. I drove her car. Steve was going to police school in Oklahoma City. They lived in Paden so me and Twyla drove up there. Snow was still on the ground, wasn’t it?
T: Uh-huh.
M: And we drove to her house. And her mother and daddy-in-law came up there, and we all went to his graduation. Well, when Steve and Twyla were bringing me back home and we got into Holdenville we were passing a police station. Michael hollered at the police there, “PUSSIES!”
B: And he tells you dirty jokes too.
Q: It’s hilarious.
M: Steve laughed and he said, “Well, am I one, Michael?” And he said, “YOU ARE NOW!” (laughs)
F: And you ask Michael what he likes to eat and he says the same thing. “PUSSIES.” (small laugh) That’s a man for you!
Q: That’s the culture.
F: So he’s nasty.
Q: Now you have all these different things going on like the illness, the alien aspects, the spirit aspects. How would you basically sum it all up in a paragraph or so? The gamut of the story?
M: I don’t know.
Q: You’re lost. You’re totally lost. There are too many details and there’s no way of really going through and figuring them out. It would make sense to try to recall each thing that happened in chronological order if that’s possible.
M: Bill was laying in there sleeping a couple of years back.
T: (small laugh) I know what you’re going to say.
M: He was laying in there on his bed asleep and then he came in here.
Q: You mean upstairs in the attic?
T: No.
Q: Oh, Bill, your husband?
M: He was on his bed. He then came in here and he said —
( . . . )
K: . . . knocked Bill right in the temple and it left a big old mark it hit him so hard.
Q: That’s probably the most violent it’s ever been.
M: To him, I guess.
F: He poked me in the eye once.
T: It threw rocks at Billy Joe. It ran him off that day. (“UM-HUH”)
Q: What was it though? What was it that hit you in the eye?
F: His finger (“YEAH”) poked me in the eye.
Q: What about pulling of hair? They do that too.
F: Yes.
K: That hurts.
T: And pulling boobs and everything.
F: Uh-huh.
M: He pulled my nipple one night —
E: (small laugh)
M: That’s why I grabbed his hand.
Q: (laughs)
K: Mom was running around back here with it hanging out of her bra.
T: Don’t tell that story. That was gross.
K: (laughs)
T: That embarrasses us. Don’t tell anybody.
Q: It’s just the truth. This is your family life.
M: Here a while back my bra felt weird. Michael pulled my blouse up and it was hanging out over here. (laughs)
K: Twice that happened.
M: And I like to brag about them. There’s no way that could have happened without Michael. (“IT WAS SO FUN”) It was so funny.
Q: Do you find that it’s more prevalent at night than during the day?
T: Uh-huh. Night. There’s a lot of action at night.
F: It’s when all the lights are out.
T: The more people here the better it is.
Q: It draws upon them probably somehow. So we have the vampire element as well.
T: Have you ever heard of ‘hag.’ A ‘hag’? (“I HAVE” “EACH”) You brought up vampire? One time we were all sitting outside and we saw this huge black form. There are two old refrigerators out there. It moved from one to the other and there were red eyes. A guy told us about a female and it comes upon you at night and it takes your breath away.
M: We’ve seen that.
T: It comes upon you (“WHAT”) and it’s called a hag. We seen that out there that one night. You see, there’s everything.
Q: It could have been a bigfoot.
T: That’s one thing that we haven’t really (“NO”) seen or thought of.
Q: Okay. But you said red eyes.
F: Except me. (“MARK”)
Q: I mean bigfoots have sometimes been described as having red eyes.
F: Except me.
T: I mean me. I haven’t seen a bigfoot.
F: Well, I have.
Q: What? What?
M: He said, “What?”
F: That bigfoot thing you mentioned way down there.
K: It lives right down here.
Q: You saw a bigfoot too?
F: Yes.
Q: So we have everything?!
K: On top of the shed and at a bush.
M: Oh, you mean that gray-looking, about seven foot tall thing?
K: Tall like an Amazon man.
F: Now it saw her —
K: And it followed me home and it was in his grandmother’s house.
Q: Why is this happening? Why are all these bizarre things happening here?
F: Demons. (laughs) (“WE DIDN’T SEE IT”)
T: I think there’s a gas leak and we’re all —
Q: Do you think it’s geographical?
T: I think it’s the town.
K: Remember Laurie that got in trouble? She and Betty were out there watching it one night as it stood out there in an old chicken pen. And they turned the headlights on. It just stood there for a while. I’ve never seen it but they did.
Q: You know what seems to happen? During the time of the Bell case, it was as if mankind’s shared unconscious was being perpetuated in this one small geographical area and that almost seems like what’s going on here with all the cryptic elements.
T: My sister’s friend, Larry, was talking about one time way before this when he was walking down the road and heard a horse and buggy coming. (“YEAH”) And he stepped out of the way. (“RIGHT”) He jumped in a ditch but he didn’t see anything as he heard it go by.
Q: There’s just so much that has happened around here.
T: And this sounded like a Confederate —
Q: Something is definitely out of control. (laughs)
K: Some kids were walking along down here. Remember that night I was trying to hang up some —
M: Yes. She heard something trying to talk out there.
K: It sounded like a mentally retarded person.
Q: Oh my God.
K: And when I looked out there near two small trees it was about seven feet tall and sounded like a mentally retarded man trying to talk to you.
T: Remember what happened at the house in Tupelo?
K: That time I ran in the house and got Mom. (“THAT”)
T: This was years and years and years (“IT HAPPENED”) before we lived in Centrahoma. That house was haunted.
K: It was in the summer time, wasn’t it? I had the window open. I’m laying on the bed reading a book and I kept hearing something breathing. There were boys always outside so I figured it was somebody outside. On the other side of my bed I had a stuffed animal and it suddenly looked like someone was crawling up on the bed with me. You could see the bed moving like somebody was crawling and there wasn’t anyone there.
T: She went and got us. I didn’t believe her and we all got stuck in the hall running back down the hall. (“WELL HE”) Even Bill was running. (“EVERYONE”)
Q: (to Kim) What’s your relationship with the family again exactly?
M: She’s my daughter. (“WHO”)
Q: (to Twyla) She’s your stepsister?
T: No.
F: They’re all —
Q: Oh — real sister.
T: That guy that came in, Billy Joe, is our stepbrother.
Q: Oh, I see. Bill’s son. I’m just trying to keep track of everyone. But she has a different father?
T: (sighs) I’ll just go home. (“SHE’S A BELL”)
K: Oh, you will not.
Q: She’s a Bell?
M: She was a Bell too.
Q: You’re a Bell? Okay.
K: We were out in the room somewhere —
T: Oh, Kim, I’ll hit you. (“BUT”)
K: Leave it alone.
Q: So you saw something underneath the bed but when you looked there was nothing there?
K: Nothing there. It was on the bed with me.
Q: That’s another incident exactly like one of those that happened to the earlier Bell family. (“JERRY”)
T: I was pretty small at the time but I remember the TV show about that other Bell family. (“THE KIDS LIVED”)
K: That was right before you caught my bedroom on fire and my clothing on fire. (“BAD”)
T: I was bad about starting fires.
M: That was in Duranch.
F: She started my own room on fire.
Q: We all do things like that accidentally sometimes. I did that once. (“NO”)
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: I WAS REFERRING TO AN OCCASION WHEN I WAS A CHILD AND LIT A SPARKLER FIREWORK IN THE HOUSE NOT REALIZING THERE WOULD BE SPARKS.)
T: When the last fire happened a few years ago, I was in the bathroom and I heard Michael saying, “THERE’S A FIRE. THERE’S A FIRE.” So I told Mom and Kim, “Your house is on fire. Michael told me.” They went back to check every room and it was mine. It was an electrical fire from my electrical stove. (“OHH”)
Q: That’s so dangerous.
K: And here me and Mom were walking around in there.
F: Bare-footed.
M: The mashed potatoes were still plugged in. It was caused from that. And we were treading on the wet floor.
T: It shorted out and started a fire and Michael told us.
Q: That smoke can really be lethal.
M: We could’ve got electrocuted.
Q: The smoke is so hot. (“YEAH”) I just heard a scary report on CNN.
T: But see he told us. (“DID YOU”)
Q: Always cover your face if ever you realize you’re experiencing a fire —
M: We didn’t think about it. We just put it out.
Q: — because you can go blind.
K: If Michael hadn’t been here and told us, the house would have burned down.
T: Because it was bad already. He must’ve started it.
Q: Does it ever predict the weather?
T: No.
Q: I guess it’s always pretty much the same, anyway.
T: But every time people have seen the child apparitions in the yard it has been raining.
Q: How many children do they see?
T: I think just one. That one blonde-haired — solid white-haired one.
K: What about those kids that have been seen in the cellar door?
T: You didn’t show Mark that picture.
Q: These are the orphanage children?
K: Yeah.
Q: You said there was an orphanage that burned down? (“ALL BURNED DOWN”)
T: There’s one that’s supposed to have.
Q: And where do you think it was situated? On the premises or in the vicinity?
T: It must have been here but we can’t find any record of it. We do find burnt stuff sometimes. (“BURNT”) Pennies and stuff. Something did burn down here. (“OOOOM”)
M: I hear him.
B: He’s right over there.
Q: You hear Michael?
M: I heard him.
Q: You mean that sort of growling noise?
M: Yeah.
Q: I thought I heard sort of a growling noise.
T: That’s Leader.
Q: Maybe there’s just something moving though? Did you hear that?
T: It sounded like a chair.
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: MAXINE SHOWS ME A PHOTO OF WHAT MAY BE THE SPIRIT OF A CHILD THAT CAN BE SEEN STANDING BEHIND DESIREÉ.)
M: There’s one of them in the cellar door right there. See it?
F: A little kid. (“YOU KNOW”)
Q: It’s hard to make out exactly. You know. (“NO”) This photo won’t change the minds of people who don’t believe in this, unfortunately.
M: Here’s a photo of the woman that took the pictures. She won’t come back. (“SO — OKAY” “NO”)
Q: Now we have so many different elements. The orphanage that burned down. The trips to the cemetery. What is that all about?
T: We just started doing it.
Q: And the bad spirits are in the cemetery?
T: The cemetery. But they do come over here sometimes. They came over here one night. Michael said, “THEY’RE ALL COMING.”
M: The what?
T: Bad spirits, Mama. (“OH”) And there was a guy that knew how to say some words about the Devil.
M: He had a book about it.
T: And after they left Michael said, “OH, THEY’RE GONE.” He was scared too. We looked out the door and there were thousands of —
F: Damn.
T: — fingerprints all over that door.
F: Even babies’ hand prints. (“YOU COULD HEAR THEM”)
T: They had gotten to that screen door.
B: You could hear them out there.
Q: How does this tie-in with the alien aspects of the case?
K We don’t know.
Q: Is it like the ghost versus the aliens?
T: I think this town draws every kind of supernatural being here.
Q: That’s what it sounds like to me. Geographically, where is the focus? Is it this house?
T: I don’t know.
K: I think they just picked a dwelling place.
M: They might have thought we would accept them like we did.
Q: That’s right. You’re friends with them. There’s more to it than that, though.
F: Yeah. Got to be.
Q: Because when I opened the door to the attic a penny flew at me.
T: And we hear babies crying. Not our babies.
Q: That fits in with the orphanage aspect.
T: Yeah. (“YEAH”)
Q: Okay, so we have one group of phenomena that can be categorized under the heading of ‘The Orphanage That Burned Down.” (“WHAT”) Another category could be the events here inside the house. (“WANT TO SHARE A BATH”) One category could be the alien-type events. What other categories can we make? We have the family of spirits. Is that a good category?
M: Yeah.
F: Um-huh.
Q: ‘The Family of Spirits.’ (“FAMILY OF SPIRITS” “CAN’T FOOL GOD”)
T: No. They’re not a family of spirits. They’re aliens.
Q: ‘The Band of Aliens.’ Okay. (“LET ME GET MOTHER”)
T: Mickey and all of them are supposed to be aliens.
Q: That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Let me go back to that page. So the aliens are ‘Trouble,’ ‘Grandma,’ ‘Grandpa,’ ‘Ricky,’ ‘Nicky,’ ‘Katey,’ ‘Tammy,’ ‘Leader,’ ‘Sarah,’ ‘E.T.’ — ‘Michael’ is not part of the band of aliens? Or is he?
T: Yes.
M: Trouble is the one that threatened Brenda one time.
Q: Really? How?
M: He kept telling Brenda, “YOU’RE GONNA GET IT. I’M GONNA KNOCK YOUR BLOCK OFF.”
T: E.T. is the one who destroys stuff.
Q: Why was he mad at you?
M: He was jealous of Brenda.
B: Yeah, because E.T. loved Michael. Wasn’t Michael supposed to have this thing going with something.
Q: Uh-oh. Do you mean Michael is interested in Twyla?
F: In her. Brenda.
M: Brenda.
K: Brenda.
Q: This is a whole another category.
T: Oh gosh.
M: He wanted to marry her.
Q: They were called incubus in the olden days. They’re spirits that lusted after people.
F: I live in a house right now where there’s the spirit of this little boy whose mama cut his head off with three butcher knives.
T: I told him about that.
F: I can hear things there in the house.
Q: In your house?
F: Yeah, plenty.
Q: Are you a Bell?
F: Well, I was a Bell. I’m married now.
Q: Oh, I see. Well, you still are. That’s — who knows?
F: Yeah, really.
Q: So now what’s happening in your house?
F: Once I went into one of the two bedrooms in the back by the kitchen. The bedroom’s not finished —
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: MEGAN HAS ONE OF HER RECURRING OUTBURSTS AND TWYLA TRIES TO CALM HER DOWN.)
F: — and I had a hook or something like that and threw it up in the attic.
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: THE HEAVY WOODEN TABLE WE’RE SEATED AT SUDDENLY LURCHES A FOOT FORWARD AND THE SOUND OF IT CAN BE HEARD ON THE TAPE HERE.)
F: Ow. E.T. don’t do that.
M: Did he do that?
F: Yes, he did.
M: Oh my gosh.
Q: What happened?
M: He pushed the table —
T: That glass sliced my finger.
Q: Oh dear. Did you break the glass?
T: No, I think —
F: Are you okay?
H: Yeah.
F: See what you did, E.T.?
M: Let’s push the table back.
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: THE SOUND HEARD ON THE TAPE HERE IS OF US PUSHING THE TABLE BACK.)
Q: Did E.T. get mad because we were talking about him?
M: Probably.
F: I kind of think so, knowing that he’s that little boy. Some of us want to start talking about it.
M: He is a little boy. (“YES”)
F: No, I mean it was a big person, I think. Anyway —
Q: Do you think Michael could have just gone home with you that time you were beginning to tell us about?
F: I don’t know but I found potatoes in the attic. After I threw the potato up there, I was getting ready to walk back out of the room and the potato came back and hit me in the head. (“BUT”) I won’t go back there.
Q: The entity there is that of a beheaded child?
F: I think he’s a ghost, though. I don’t think he’s an alien.
Q: That’s just at this one house?
F: Um-huh. But see — (“DOESN’T LOOK”) my cousin had bought it and moved it over to Lula.
T: He’s screaming.
Q: What?
T: Michael’s screaming. I hear him screaming. (“HE”) He went “WOOOOOO.” I mean not that loud.
Q: Sometimes in these cases some people can hear them and some people can’t hear them.
F: Sometimes I can and sometimes I can’t.
Q: You have to be used to him, I guess. You have to know what you’re listening for too.
T: Oh I do. I can tell him from animals and everything.
F: Yes. Just like one time Twyla — when we were little kids, she said, “Mama, I heard something fall back there in that back room.” And nobody else heard it. (“WAS IT THE WOOD”)
T: It was like I knew it fell.
Q: When that table moved. Did it do that?
T: It always does that.
F: He moves things.
T: But most of the time objects fly. We’ve had desks that just flew out and would end up right here.
Q: He was probably just getting up from his seat. (laughs)
F: Boy, it must need a lot of room. (laughs)
Q: (whimpers)
K: Remember when Charlotte saw just the middle of the table go up just like it was —
F: Like a bowl of Jell-O or something. (“YEAH”)
K: People that come out here see a lot of things that we don’t sometimes.
Q: So some people can hear certain things and other people can’t.
F: Um-huh. (“I REMEMBER”)
Q: Remember the girls who would have visions of the Virgin Mary? I saw some newsreel footage of them on “Unsolved Mysteries.” It was very, very convincing.
F: Yeah.
Q: Those teenagers who saw the Virgin Mary seemed like they were possessed and they would walk backwards. It was compellingly realistic.
F: When we first began living in that house I would close my eyes and it was like I wasn’t really asleep. I was there with that woman. I was standing right there with her when she was cutting her little boy’s head off. I mean I could see it. I was there with her. It was like I was doing it.
Q: Where is the house located exactly? Is it still in this general vicinity?
F: In Lula.
Q: How far away is that?
T: Ten miles.
Q: So it’s still the basic vicinity.
T: And you also should know about four miles east is a community called Boiling Springs and it’s all old Indian cemeteries.
M: And for miles there’s nothing.
K: You see that could tie-in.
Q: That’s a separate category. ‘Indian Cemeteries.’
B: For miles and miles there are no houses or anything. (“WELL”)
K: That’s where the bigfoot was spotted. Out there.
B: The monks lived there.
Q: See, now this is where a good writer like me will (“ME”) tie all these different occurrences together.
T: You don’t have trouble?
Q: No, (“THAT’S RIGHT”) that’s the whole point, though. (“BUT”) Instead of being scared of the material and just trying to focus on —
K: One thing.
Q: — like the poltergeist activities, you really have to do justice to everything that has happened.
T: That’s what they did for the show. They said, “Well, we’re going to say —”
Q: But that’s not really being a good journalist.
T: Yeah.
Q: People always want to see what they want into it. Always remember that. (“YOU KNOW”) When you are interviewed by people, always maintain — (“LET”) let the integrity of the events speak for themselves — (“BUT”) and don’t let people sway you to say what they want to hear. (“YEAH” “FALSE NEGATIVE” “BECAUSE THAT DOESN’T HELP”)
T: Uh-huh.
Q: That doesn’t help anyone. It just helps them sell issues. Newspaper copies.
B: Kind of like the Enquirer.
Q: They could put you under contract because you have enough material for your own weekly column (small laugh) with all these things going on.
B: Yeah.
K: Michael has put vinegar in our ice tea.
Q: Do you know if the vinegar was from your own cupboard or somewhere else?
T: Yeah. Because Mama has a gallon of vinegar.
Q: I see.
F: Well, he peed in my potato salad one day.
Q: That’s really nasty, isn’t it?
F: I know it.
Q: That’s — ooohhh. That’s really nasty.
F: I went and made me a dole of potato salad. I was going back to get it. I said, “Now now now — what’s this sitting there?” And he had hidden it behind the coffee pot. I started to eat it and there was water in it. And he said, “TEE HEE HEE, I PEED IN IT.”
Q: People would say, “Oh, the kids did it.” They wouldn’t believe your story in a million years.
M: It was watery. Potato salad’s not watery.
F: It didn’t have any water in it until he — (“I LOST MY MONEY”)
Q: The thing I’m really wondering about is what’s going on in the attic.
F: Why don’t you go up there and see?
T: He wouldn’t go up there.
M: One time (“WELL I SAID”) Twyla went in the attic and —
Q: I think there’s a lot more going on up there than you’re aware of.
F: In the attic?
M: — he hollered, “GET OUT OF HERE!”
T: I messed up because I didn’t stay on the beams. If you stay on the beams you won’t fall through.
Q: Beams. I’m just thinking of other stories where the beams were an important aspect.
B: Beam me up, Scotty. (“THE HOUSE”)
Q: In the house on the Isle of Man (“YEAH”) it would appear as a mongoose sometimes.
F: Did Mama tell you it likes to steal money?
Q: Yeah.
F: Boy, I don’t know how much money it stole off of me and her but I had $10 here about a week ago — that’s all I had.
Q: It sounds like he can do whatever he wants. Let’s face it.
F: Well, if I ever catch him I’m going to do what I want.
K: But why does he need money? I don’t know why he needs money.
Q: You can’t catch him though, can you? (“YEAH”)
F: No.
Q: But can he dematerialize things out of your purse or do you think he has to do it physically? Have you ever had anything in your pocket disappear?
F: Um-huh.
Q: So he doesn’t really have the same rules as we all have. What it wants it can have.
F: I’m like everybody else. I’m poor and stuff. I should know better not to come down here with money because every time I do it winds up with it. Every time. And I’ll beg him and I’ll cry and I’ll plead with him. “EEH EEH EEH EEH EEH.” He just laughs at me.
Q: When you hear it laughing, it’s like from a distance.
F: Yeah. Um-huh.
M: Like a little squeal or something.
Q: See, that’s why people —
F: Um-huh. It’s like —
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: FAE DOES SUCH A GOOD JOB OF RECREATING THE SOUND THAT I CAN’T SPELL HER VOCALIZATION.)
Q: — don’t believe in it —
T: It’s real high-pitched.
Q: — because it’s not right in front of them. They think for it to be real it has to be right in front of them.
M: That’s not true.
T: I don’t think it’s meant to be figured out, Mama.
Q: Definitely not.
F: I’m beginning to think that, too.
Q: What’s life? Is it to be figured out?
B: No, not really.
Q: Right. Exactly.
F: It’s different. It’s hard. Life’s hard.
Q: The people who don’t believe in it because its so bizarre have no certain comprehension of anything in life. Is life just one big morality (“CON”) test? For what purpose? (“YEAH” “NO”)
B: I drink more.
T: I’ve never believed that we’re the only people on Earth, though. (“WHEW”) As big as the world is, I’ve never believed that we’re the only inhabitants on this Earth.
Q: In terms of fairy folk or what?
T: In terms of aliens — whatever, you know?
Q: Some people believe in other dimensions.
T: Really? I don’t know.
Q: In fact, the Bell spirit was quoted as saying, “THERE ARE MANY DIFFERENT UNIVERSES IN MANY DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS.”
T: Michael has said that! That’s exactly what he said.
Q: Well, see now these are important things. You should write these things down. These are very, very important.
T: Well, I never even thought about the Bell Witch thing.
Q: Think about it. This could be important for mankind. (“YEAH THAT’S TRUE”) A spirit is telling you that there are different dimensions and different universes.
M: Yeah.
Q: That’s very important. (“WA-HOOOO!”) It’s too much for people to comprehend but these poltergeists seem to understand things that we have no clue about.
T: And Michael has told us that he knows Elvis. He talks to Elvis.
Q: See? Now these are important things.
T: He says, “ELVIS IS DEAD.”
F: And he knows how come I can’t have kids.
Q: What did he say?
F: He said he knew that I was in a car wreck in California. He knew that.
M: He also knew how you got pregnant in the tubes.
T: Tell him about when you was little, Mama.
F: I got pregnant in the tubes in California. He knew all of that.
Q: When he tells you, though, his voice is far away when you hear it? Like the meow sound I heard earlier?
B: No. It’s right there.
M: It’s right there.
F: It’s right there
Q: Okay. (“OHHH”)
M: I’m almost sixty years old now and Michael has told me about things that happened to me when I was six years old.
Q: They’re all-knowing entities. That’s why that journalist asked, “Are you of God?” It sort of blows your mind. When I called her up to try to find out your address and she told me to write to you care of the post office, it was as if she just didn’t want to have anything more to do with it. She never did send me the clippings I asked for. I think she’s just scared to death of it all.
M: She is.
F: She brings religion and all into it. She thinks it’s a demon.
Q: She thinks its a demon? Why would somebody see bad into it just because we don’t understand it?
M: “I think it’s a demon” is what she said.
T: Because she’s one of those religious people and if they don’t understand it, it’s evil.
Q: Sometimes it acts like a little demon but that’s beside the point. (“WHAT”) (laughs)
F: He’s probably got a little demon in him but —
Q: That isn’t the full story.
M: Uh-uh.
Q: And it may be. I mean who knows?
T: That’s too easy. That’s why.
Q: People want easy solutions. (“THEY DON’T WANT TO”) They don’t want to struggle with it. (“UM-HUH” “BUT THAT’S”) But that’s interesting. Those are the kinds of things you should write down when you happen to remember them. (“ANYWAY I”) I’m trying to figure out what to do in terms of how to pursue this project. (“BUT I — YOU KNOW”) It definitely needs to be pursued, you know. (“THIS NEEDS”) This needs to be a book. (“RIGHT” “THIS NEEDS — I — I”) I’m just trying to figure out how to go about doing what I have to do. (“UH-HUH”) If you do find that contract — (“YOU KNOW BUT”) you know, fax it to me or whatever.
M: I’ll find it before you leave. (“IF IF IF”)
Q: Whatever would be best to do I’ll do. It’s not a matter of money or anything.If I have to contact the producers or whatever I will. (“I JUST THINK”) I just think this project needs to be done. (“YOU KNOW”) Obviously, it’s going to take some time to have you remember everything. What I can’t understand is the mentality of the producers. Why does someone get the rights to a story without really being passionately committed to really doing justice to the material?
T: They had to do it so fast.
Q: Yeah. Get the rights and then we’ll worry about it later. They do this in a hundred different ways and it’s always, (“SO”) “We’ll work it out.” (“I WONDER”) You know, I’ve heard about so many legal disputes over the years. A piece of paper is a piece of paper. There are always ways of getting out of a contract but you can’t always do what you want. The main thing is maintaining integrity and doing justice to the material.
T: No cancer or anything.
Q: He’s not one of the Bell family, at least. That’s something.
K: He sits and continually drinks big glasses of water and they say he’s dehydrated.
T: Constantly.
Q: Oh my God.
M: He’s drying out inside.
K: There’s no way. There is no way.
Q: One of the things I said to you right away — I said, “Has anyone had any trouble eating or drinking?” I told you that.
T: Oh gosh. You didn’t think about that when he said that, did you?
Q: This is a classic, classic scenario. The inability to drink has been traced back to the witches of all the olden days. They called it witchcraft back then.
T: Oh gosh.
Q: The inability to drink is demonic possession and witchcraft.
F: I wish I had the inability.
T: I wish I had the inability to eat.
F: (laughs)
Q: They have a new enzyme that’s coming out.
T: I saw that.
Q: They have an enzyme that they found in mice that changes your metabolism rate.
F: Yes, I saw that.
K: But you have to take it for the rest of your life, they say.
Q: Yeah, but a lot of people are standing in line. (small laugh) I think this is related. The inability to drink.
M: I may run.
K: It’s not an inability to drink, though. He drinks.
Q: It disappears. After going in.
K: Oh.
Q: It goes somewhere else.
T: That’s why he drinks so much then?
M: Oh no.
Q: I’m just saying this is a pattern in other cases. I don’t know what’s going on with Bill.
B: Unusual.
F: What will happen if it keeps on like that?
Q: What do you think?
T: Is something trying to kill him?
Q: That’s what it looks like to me.
M: That’s what I said. “I bet he’s going to be the next one.”
Q: The nerves, too, is another classic symptom.
M: Your kids. Do something with your kids.
T: Mine’s not here. She’s not doing nothing.
Q: Shhhhhh. The kids are just spooked by this house. Yet it’s not enough to really upset someone I don’t think.
M: If only they stopped bugging Bill.
B: I think that’s what kids like that are for.
Q: Furthermore, people are sort of accusing Twyla of doing it without knowing it. That’s a big weight to have on someone’s shoulders.
T: Yeah.
Q: It must be very uncomfortable for you to deal with it all. (“IT IS”) Do you ever think, “What if I am in some way responsible and can’t control it?” Have you ever thought that? And feel almost guilty? There’s no way of knowing.
T: They think I’m psychic too.
Q: I know people who think they’re psychic.
T: I don’t think that.
Q: You know you’re psychic.
T: No, I don’t think that I am but other people always seem to.
Q: Have you ever known something is going to happen before it happened? (“EHH”)
T: Yeah.
Q: Well, people do that generally, though. That doesn’t mean you’re psychic.
T: I told my husband when I first met him, —
Q: Love at first sight. (“YEAH”)
T: — “We’ll get married. You will become a cop and we will live in a town that starts with P.” And we got married and we lived in the town where he was a cop and it was Paden. My husband thinks I’m psychic too. (“AND WHAT DID”)
Q: And what did the entity say about your marriage and about him?
T: It didn’t really.
Q: It didn’t say anything.
T: But he does like Steve. They really like him. (“WHAT DID HE SAY”)
Q: How do you know that? What did it say exactly? If you can remember. (“NO”) I guess it’s hard to remember exactly what it said.
T: Yeah, it is.
M: I’ll tell you something else. I went with Twyla. I drove her car. Steve was going to police school in Oklahoma City. They lived in Paden so me and Twyla drove up there. Snow was still on the ground, wasn’t it?
T: Uh-huh.
M: And we drove to her house. And her mother and daddy-in-law came up there, and we all went to his graduation. Well, when Steve and Twyla were bringing me back home and we got into Holdenville we were passing a police station. Michael hollered at the police there, “PUSSIES!”
B: And he tells you dirty jokes too.
Q: It’s hilarious.
M: Steve laughed and he said, “Well, am I one, Michael?” And he said, “YOU ARE NOW!” (laughs)
F: And you ask Michael what he likes to eat and he says the same thing. “PUSSIES.” (small laugh) That’s a man for you!
Q: That’s the culture.
F: So he’s nasty.
Q: Now you have all these different things going on like the illness, the alien aspects, the spirit aspects. How would you basically sum it all up in a paragraph or so? The gamut of the story?
M: I don’t know.
Q: You’re lost. You’re totally lost. There are too many details and there’s no way of really going through and figuring them out. It would make sense to try to recall each thing that happened in chronological order if that’s possible.
M: Bill was laying in there sleeping a couple of years back.
T: (small laugh) I know what you’re going to say.
M: He was laying in there on his bed asleep and then he came in here.
Q: You mean upstairs in the attic?
T: No.
Q: Oh, Bill, your husband?
M: He was on his bed. He then came in here and he said —
( . . . )
K: . . . knocked Bill right in the temple and it left a big old mark it hit him so hard.
Q: That’s probably the most violent it’s ever been.
M: To him, I guess.
F: He poked me in the eye once.
T: It threw rocks at Billy Joe. It ran him off that day. (“UM-HUH”)
Q: What was it though? What was it that hit you in the eye?
F: His finger (“YEAH”) poked me in the eye.
Q: What about pulling of hair? They do that too.
F: Yes.
K: That hurts.
T: And pulling boobs and everything.
F: Uh-huh.
M: He pulled my nipple one night —
E: (small laugh)
M: That’s why I grabbed his hand.
Q: (laughs)
K: Mom was running around back here with it hanging out of her bra.
T: Don’t tell that story. That was gross.
K: (laughs)
T: That embarrasses us. Don’t tell anybody.
Q: It’s just the truth. This is your family life.
M: Here a while back my bra felt weird. Michael pulled my blouse up and it was hanging out over here. (laughs)
K: Twice that happened.
M: And I like to brag about them. There’s no way that could have happened without Michael. (“IT WAS SO FUN”) It was so funny.
Q: Do you find that it’s more prevalent at night than during the day?
T: Uh-huh. Night. There’s a lot of action at night.
F: It’s when all the lights are out.
T: The more people here the better it is.
Q: It draws upon them probably somehow. So we have the vampire element as well.
T: Have you ever heard of ‘hag.’ A ‘hag’? (“I HAVE” “EACH”) You brought up vampire? One time we were all sitting outside and we saw this huge black form. There are two old refrigerators out there. It moved from one to the other and there were red eyes. A guy told us about a female and it comes upon you at night and it takes your breath away.
M: We’ve seen that.
T: It comes upon you (“WHAT”) and it’s called a hag. We seen that out there that one night. You see, there’s everything.
Q: It could have been a bigfoot.
T: That’s one thing that we haven’t really (“NO”) seen or thought of.
Q: Okay. But you said red eyes.
F: Except me. (“MARK”)
Q: I mean bigfoots have sometimes been described as having red eyes.
F: Except me.
T: I mean me. I haven’t seen a bigfoot.
F: Well, I have.
Q: What? What?
M: He said, “What?”
F: That bigfoot thing you mentioned way down there.
K: It lives right down here.
Q: You saw a bigfoot too?
F: Yes.
Q: So we have everything?!
K: On top of the shed and at a bush.
M: Oh, you mean that gray-looking, about seven foot tall thing?
K: Tall like an Amazon man.
F: Now it saw her —
K: And it followed me home and it was in his grandmother’s house.
Q: Why is this happening? Why are all these bizarre things happening here?
F: Demons. (laughs) (“WE DIDN’T SEE IT”)
T: I think there’s a gas leak and we’re all —
Q: Do you think it’s geographical?
T: I think it’s the town.
K: Remember Laurie that got in trouble? She and Betty were out there watching it one night as it stood out there in an old chicken pen. And they turned the headlights on. It just stood there for a while. I’ve never seen it but they did.
Q: You know what seems to happen? During the time of the Bell case, it was as if mankind’s shared unconscious was being perpetuated in this one small geographical area and that almost seems like what’s going on here with all the cryptic elements.
T: My sister’s friend, Larry, was talking about one time way before this when he was walking down the road and heard a horse and buggy coming. (“YEAH”) And he stepped out of the way. (“RIGHT”) He jumped in a ditch but he didn’t see anything as he heard it go by.
Q: There’s just so much that has happened around here.
T: And this sounded like a Confederate —
Q: Something is definitely out of control. (laughs)
K: Some kids were walking along down here. Remember that night I was trying to hang up some —
M: Yes. She heard something trying to talk out there.
K: It sounded like a mentally retarded person.
Q: Oh my God.
K: And when I looked out there near two small trees it was about seven feet tall and sounded like a mentally retarded man trying to talk to you.
T: Remember what happened at the house in Tupelo?
K: That time I ran in the house and got Mom. (“THAT”)
T: This was years and years and years (“IT HAPPENED”) before we lived in Centrahoma. That house was haunted.
K: It was in the summer time, wasn’t it? I had the window open. I’m laying on the bed reading a book and I kept hearing something breathing. There were boys always outside so I figured it was somebody outside. On the other side of my bed I had a stuffed animal and it suddenly looked like someone was crawling up on the bed with me. You could see the bed moving like somebody was crawling and there wasn’t anyone there.
T: She went and got us. I didn’t believe her and we all got stuck in the hall running back down the hall. (“WELL HE”) Even Bill was running. (“EVERYONE”)
Q: (to Kim) What’s your relationship with the family again exactly?
M: She’s my daughter. (“WHO”)
Q: (to Twyla) She’s your stepsister?
T: No.
F: They’re all —
Q: Oh — real sister.
T: That guy that came in, Billy Joe, is our stepbrother.
Q: Oh, I see. Bill’s son. I’m just trying to keep track of everyone. But she has a different father?
T: (sighs) I’ll just go home. (“SHE’S A BELL”)
K: Oh, you will not.
Q: She’s a Bell?
M: She was a Bell too.
Q: You’re a Bell? Okay.
K: We were out in the room somewhere —
T: Oh, Kim, I’ll hit you. (“BUT”)
K: Leave it alone.
Q: So you saw something underneath the bed but when you looked there was nothing there?
K: Nothing there. It was on the bed with me.
Q: That’s another incident exactly like one of those that happened to the earlier Bell family. (“JERRY”)
T: I was pretty small at the time but I remember the TV show about that other Bell family. (“THE KIDS LIVED”)
K: That was right before you caught my bedroom on fire and my clothing on fire. (“BAD”)
T: I was bad about starting fires.
M: That was in Duranch.
F: She started my own room on fire.
Q: We all do things like that accidentally sometimes. I did that once. (“NO”)
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: I WAS REFERRING TO AN OCCASION WHEN I WAS A CHILD AND LIT A SPARKLER FIREWORK IN THE HOUSE NOT REALIZING THERE WOULD BE SPARKS.)
T: When the last fire happened a few years ago, I was in the bathroom and I heard Michael saying, “THERE’S A FIRE. THERE’S A FIRE.” So I told Mom and Kim, “Your house is on fire. Michael told me.” They went back to check every room and it was mine. It was an electrical fire from my electrical stove. (“OHH”)
Q: That’s so dangerous.
K: And here me and Mom were walking around in there.
F: Bare-footed.
M: The mashed potatoes were still plugged in. It was caused from that. And we were treading on the wet floor.
T: It shorted out and started a fire and Michael told us.
Q: That smoke can really be lethal.
M: We could’ve got electrocuted.
Q: The smoke is so hot. (“YEAH”) I just heard a scary report on CNN.
T: But see he told us. (“DID YOU”)
Q: Always cover your face if ever you realize you’re experiencing a fire —
M: We didn’t think about it. We just put it out.
Q: — because you can go blind.
K: If Michael hadn’t been here and told us, the house would have burned down.
T: Because it was bad already. He must’ve started it.
Q: Does it ever predict the weather?
T: No.
Q: I guess it’s always pretty much the same, anyway.
T: But every time people have seen the child apparitions in the yard it has been raining.
Q: How many children do they see?
T: I think just one. That one blonde-haired — solid white-haired one.
K: What about those kids that have been seen in the cellar door?
T: You didn’t show Mark that picture.
Q: These are the orphanage children?
K: Yeah.
Q: You said there was an orphanage that burned down? (“ALL BURNED DOWN”)
T: There’s one that’s supposed to have.
Q: And where do you think it was situated? On the premises or in the vicinity?
T: It must have been here but we can’t find any record of it. We do find burnt stuff sometimes. (“BURNT”) Pennies and stuff. Something did burn down here. (“OOOOM”)
M: I hear him.
B: He’s right over there.
Q: You hear Michael?
M: I heard him.
Q: You mean that sort of growling noise?
M: Yeah.
Q: I thought I heard sort of a growling noise.
T: That’s Leader.
Q: Maybe there’s just something moving though? Did you hear that?
T: It sounded like a chair.
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: MAXINE SHOWS ME A PHOTO OF WHAT MAY BE THE SPIRIT OF A CHILD THAT CAN BE SEEN STANDING BEHIND DESIREÉ.)
M: There’s one of them in the cellar door right there. See it?
F: A little kid. (“YOU KNOW”)
Q: It’s hard to make out exactly. You know. (“NO”) This photo won’t change the minds of people who don’t believe in this, unfortunately.
M: Here’s a photo of the woman that took the pictures. She won’t come back. (“SO — OKAY” “NO”)
Q: Now we have so many different elements. The orphanage that burned down. The trips to the cemetery. What is that all about?
T: We just started doing it.
Q: And the bad spirits are in the cemetery?
T: The cemetery. But they do come over here sometimes. They came over here one night. Michael said, “THEY’RE ALL COMING.”
M: The what?
T: Bad spirits, Mama. (“OH”) And there was a guy that knew how to say some words about the Devil.
M: He had a book about it.
T: And after they left Michael said, “OH, THEY’RE GONE.” He was scared too. We looked out the door and there were thousands of —
F: Damn.
T: — fingerprints all over that door.
F: Even babies’ hand prints. (“YOU COULD HEAR THEM”)
T: They had gotten to that screen door.
B: You could hear them out there.
Q: How does this tie-in with the alien aspects of the case?
K We don’t know.
Q: Is it like the ghost versus the aliens?
T: I think this town draws every kind of supernatural being here.
Q: That’s what it sounds like to me. Geographically, where is the focus? Is it this house?
T: I don’t know.
K: I think they just picked a dwelling place.
M: They might have thought we would accept them like we did.
Q: That’s right. You’re friends with them. There’s more to it than that, though.
F: Yeah. Got to be.
Q: Because when I opened the door to the attic a penny flew at me.
T: And we hear babies crying. Not our babies.
Q: That fits in with the orphanage aspect.
T: Yeah. (“YEAH”)
Q: Okay, so we have one group of phenomena that can be categorized under the heading of ‘The Orphanage That Burned Down.” (“WHAT”) Another category could be the events here inside the house. (“WANT TO SHARE A BATH”) One category could be the alien-type events. What other categories can we make? We have the family of spirits. Is that a good category?
M: Yeah.
F: Um-huh.
Q: ‘The Family of Spirits.’ (“FAMILY OF SPIRITS” “CAN’T FOOL GOD”)
T: No. They’re not a family of spirits. They’re aliens.
Q: ‘The Band of Aliens.’ Okay. (“LET ME GET MOTHER”)
T: Mickey and all of them are supposed to be aliens.
Q: That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Let me go back to that page. So the aliens are ‘Trouble,’ ‘Grandma,’ ‘Grandpa,’ ‘Ricky,’ ‘Nicky,’ ‘Katey,’ ‘Tammy,’ ‘Leader,’ ‘Sarah,’ ‘E.T.’ — ‘Michael’ is not part of the band of aliens? Or is he?
T: Yes.
M: Trouble is the one that threatened Brenda one time.
Q: Really? How?
M: He kept telling Brenda, “YOU’RE GONNA GET IT. I’M GONNA KNOCK YOUR BLOCK OFF.”
T: E.T. is the one who destroys stuff.
Q: Why was he mad at you?
M: He was jealous of Brenda.
B: Yeah, because E.T. loved Michael. Wasn’t Michael supposed to have this thing going with something.
Q: Uh-oh. Do you mean Michael is interested in Twyla?
F: In her. Brenda.
M: Brenda.
K: Brenda.
Q: This is a whole another category.
T: Oh gosh.
M: He wanted to marry her.
Q: They were called incubus in the olden days. They’re spirits that lusted after people.
F: I live in a house right now where there’s the spirit of this little boy whose mama cut his head off with three butcher knives.
T: I told him about that.
F: I can hear things there in the house.
Q: In your house?
F: Yeah, plenty.
Q: Are you a Bell?
F: Well, I was a Bell. I’m married now.
Q: Oh, I see. Well, you still are. That’s — who knows?
F: Yeah, really.
Q: So now what’s happening in your house?
F: Once I went into one of the two bedrooms in the back by the kitchen. The bedroom’s not finished —
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: MEGAN HAS ONE OF HER RECURRING OUTBURSTS AND TWYLA TRIES TO CALM HER DOWN.)
F: — and I had a hook or something like that and threw it up in the attic.
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: THE HEAVY WOODEN TABLE WE’RE SEATED AT SUDDENLY LURCHES A FOOT FORWARD AND THE SOUND OF IT CAN BE HEARD ON THE TAPE HERE.)
F: Ow. E.T. don’t do that.
M: Did he do that?
F: Yes, he did.
M: Oh my gosh.
Q: What happened?
M: He pushed the table —
T: That glass sliced my finger.
Q: Oh dear. Did you break the glass?
T: No, I think —
F: Are you okay?
H: Yeah.
F: See what you did, E.T.?
M: Let’s push the table back.
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: THE SOUND HEARD ON THE TAPE HERE IS OF US PUSHING THE TABLE BACK.)
Q: Did E.T. get mad because we were talking about him?
M: Probably.
F: I kind of think so, knowing that he’s that little boy. Some of us want to start talking about it.
M: He is a little boy. (“YES”)
F: No, I mean it was a big person, I think. Anyway —
Q: Do you think Michael could have just gone home with you that time you were beginning to tell us about?
F: I don’t know but I found potatoes in the attic. After I threw the potato up there, I was getting ready to walk back out of the room and the potato came back and hit me in the head. (“BUT”) I won’t go back there.
Q: The entity there is that of a beheaded child?
F: I think he’s a ghost, though. I don’t think he’s an alien.
Q: That’s just at this one house?
F: Um-huh. But see — (“DOESN’T LOOK”) my cousin had bought it and moved it over to Lula.
T: He’s screaming.
Q: What?
T: Michael’s screaming. I hear him screaming. (“HE”) He went “WOOOOOO.” I mean not that loud.
Q: Sometimes in these cases some people can hear them and some people can’t hear them.
F: Sometimes I can and sometimes I can’t.
Q: You have to be used to him, I guess. You have to know what you’re listening for too.
T: Oh I do. I can tell him from animals and everything.
F: Yes. Just like one time Twyla — when we were little kids, she said, “Mama, I heard something fall back there in that back room.” And nobody else heard it. (“WAS IT THE WOOD”)
T: It was like I knew it fell.
Q: When that table moved. Did it do that?
T: It always does that.
F: He moves things.
T: But most of the time objects fly. We’ve had desks that just flew out and would end up right here.
Q: He was probably just getting up from his seat. (laughs)
F: Boy, it must need a lot of room. (laughs)
Q: (whimpers)
K: Remember when Charlotte saw just the middle of the table go up just like it was —
F: Like a bowl of Jell-O or something. (“YEAH”)
K: People that come out here see a lot of things that we don’t sometimes.
Q: So some people can hear certain things and other people can’t.
F: Um-huh. (“I REMEMBER”)
Q: Remember the girls who would have visions of the Virgin Mary? I saw some newsreel footage of them on “Unsolved Mysteries.” It was very, very convincing.
F: Yeah.
Q: Those teenagers who saw the Virgin Mary seemed like they were possessed and they would walk backwards. It was compellingly realistic.
F: When we first began living in that house I would close my eyes and it was like I wasn’t really asleep. I was there with that woman. I was standing right there with her when she was cutting her little boy’s head off. I mean I could see it. I was there with her. It was like I was doing it.
Q: Where is the house located exactly? Is it still in this general vicinity?
F: In Lula.
Q: How far away is that?
T: Ten miles.
Q: So it’s still the basic vicinity.
T: And you also should know about four miles east is a community called Boiling Springs and it’s all old Indian cemeteries.
M: And for miles there’s nothing.
K: You see that could tie-in.
Q: That’s a separate category. ‘Indian Cemeteries.’
B: For miles and miles there are no houses or anything. (“WELL”)
K: That’s where the bigfoot was spotted. Out there.
B: The monks lived there.
Q: See, now this is where a good writer like me will (“ME”) tie all these different occurrences together.
T: You don’t have trouble?
Q: No, (“THAT’S RIGHT”) that’s the whole point, though. (“BUT”) Instead of being scared of the material and just trying to focus on —
K: One thing.
Q: — like the poltergeist activities, you really have to do justice to everything that has happened.
T: That’s what they did for the show. They said, “Well, we’re going to say —”
Q: But that’s not really being a good journalist.
T: Yeah.
Q: People always want to see what they want into it. Always remember that. (“YOU KNOW”) When you are interviewed by people, always maintain — (“LET”) let the integrity of the events speak for themselves — (“BUT”) and don’t let people sway you to say what they want to hear. (“YEAH” “FALSE NEGATIVE” “BECAUSE THAT DOESN’T HELP”)
T: Uh-huh.
Q: That doesn’t help anyone. It just helps them sell issues. Newspaper copies.
B: Kind of like the Enquirer.
Q: They could put you under contract because you have enough material for your own weekly column (small laugh) with all these things going on.
B: Yeah.
K: Michael has put vinegar in our ice tea.
Q: Do you know if the vinegar was from your own cupboard or somewhere else?
T: Yeah. Because Mama has a gallon of vinegar.
Q: I see.
F: Well, he peed in my potato salad one day.
Q: That’s really nasty, isn’t it?
F: I know it.
Q: That’s — ooohhh. That’s really nasty.
F: I went and made me a dole of potato salad. I was going back to get it. I said, “Now now now — what’s this sitting there?” And he had hidden it behind the coffee pot. I started to eat it and there was water in it. And he said, “TEE HEE HEE, I PEED IN IT.”
Q: People would say, “Oh, the kids did it.” They wouldn’t believe your story in a million years.
M: It was watery. Potato salad’s not watery.
F: It didn’t have any water in it until he — (“I LOST MY MONEY”)
Q: The thing I’m really wondering about is what’s going on in the attic.
F: Why don’t you go up there and see?
T: He wouldn’t go up there.
M: One time (“WELL I SAID”) Twyla went in the attic and —
Q: I think there’s a lot more going on up there than you’re aware of.
F: In the attic?
M: — he hollered, “GET OUT OF HERE!”
T: I messed up because I didn’t stay on the beams. If you stay on the beams you won’t fall through.
Q: Beams. I’m just thinking of other stories where the beams were an important aspect.
B: Beam me up, Scotty. (“THE HOUSE”)
Q: In the house on the Isle of Man (“YEAH”) it would appear as a mongoose sometimes.
F: Did Mama tell you it likes to steal money?
Q: Yeah.
F: Boy, I don’t know how much money it stole off of me and her but I had $10 here about a week ago — that’s all I had.
Q: It sounds like he can do whatever he wants. Let’s face it.
F: Well, if I ever catch him I’m going to do what I want.
K: But why does he need money? I don’t know why he needs money.
Q: You can’t catch him though, can you? (“YEAH”)
F: No.
Q: But can he dematerialize things out of your purse or do you think he has to do it physically? Have you ever had anything in your pocket disappear?
F: Um-huh.
Q: So he doesn’t really have the same rules as we all have. What it wants it can have.
F: I’m like everybody else. I’m poor and stuff. I should know better not to come down here with money because every time I do it winds up with it. Every time. And I’ll beg him and I’ll cry and I’ll plead with him. “EEH EEH EEH EEH EEH.” He just laughs at me.
Q: When you hear it laughing, it’s like from a distance.
F: Yeah. Um-huh.
M: Like a little squeal or something.
Q: See, that’s why people —
F: Um-huh. It’s like —
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: FAE DOES SUCH A GOOD JOB OF RECREATING THE SOUND THAT I CAN’T SPELL HER VOCALIZATION.)
Q: — don’t believe in it —
T: It’s real high-pitched.
Q: — because it’s not right in front of them. They think for it to be real it has to be right in front of them.
M: That’s not true.
T: I don’t think it’s meant to be figured out, Mama.
Q: Definitely not.
F: I’m beginning to think that, too.
Q: What’s life? Is it to be figured out?
B: No, not really.
Q: Right. Exactly.
F: It’s different. It’s hard. Life’s hard.
Q: The people who don’t believe in it because its so bizarre have no certain comprehension of anything in life. Is life just one big morality (“CON”) test? For what purpose? (“YEAH” “NO”)
B: I drink more.
T: I’ve never believed that we’re the only people on Earth, though. (“WHEW”) As big as the world is, I’ve never believed that we’re the only inhabitants on this Earth.
Q: In terms of fairy folk or what?
T: In terms of aliens — whatever, you know?
Q: Some people believe in other dimensions.
T: Really? I don’t know.
Q: In fact, the Bell spirit was quoted as saying, “THERE ARE MANY DIFFERENT UNIVERSES IN MANY DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS.”
T: Michael has said that! That’s exactly what he said.
Q: Well, see now these are important things. You should write these things down. These are very, very important.
T: Well, I never even thought about the Bell Witch thing.
Q: Think about it. This could be important for mankind. (“YEAH THAT’S TRUE”) A spirit is telling you that there are different dimensions and different universes.
M: Yeah.
Q: That’s very important. (“WA-HOOOO!”) It’s too much for people to comprehend but these poltergeists seem to understand things that we have no clue about.
T: And Michael has told us that he knows Elvis. He talks to Elvis.
Q: See? Now these are important things.
T: He says, “ELVIS IS DEAD.”
F: And he knows how come I can’t have kids.
Q: What did he say?
F: He said he knew that I was in a car wreck in California. He knew that.
M: He also knew how you got pregnant in the tubes.
T: Tell him about when you was little, Mama.
F: I got pregnant in the tubes in California. He knew all of that.
Q: When he tells you, though, his voice is far away when you hear it? Like the meow sound I heard earlier?
B: No. It’s right there.
M: It’s right there.
F: It’s right there
Q: Okay. (“OHHH”)
M: I’m almost sixty years old now and Michael has told me about things that happened to me when I was six years old.
Q: They’re all-knowing entities. That’s why that journalist asked, “Are you of God?” It sort of blows your mind. When I called her up to try to find out your address and she told me to write to you care of the post office, it was as if she just didn’t want to have anything more to do with it. She never did send me the clippings I asked for. I think she’s just scared to death of it all.
M: She is.
F: She brings religion and all into it. She thinks it’s a demon.
Q: She thinks its a demon? Why would somebody see bad into it just because we don’t understand it?
M: “I think it’s a demon” is what she said.
T: Because she’s one of those religious people and if they don’t understand it, it’s evil.
Q: Sometimes it acts like a little demon but that’s beside the point. (“WHAT”) (laughs)
F: He’s probably got a little demon in him but —
Q: That isn’t the full story.
M: Uh-uh.
Q: And it may be. I mean who knows?
T: That’s too easy. That’s why.
Q: People want easy solutions. (“THEY DON’T WANT TO”) They don’t want to struggle with it. (“UM-HUH” “BUT THAT’S”) But that’s interesting. Those are the kinds of things you should write down when you happen to remember them. (“ANYWAY I”) I’m trying to figure out what to do in terms of how to pursue this project. (“BUT I — YOU KNOW”) It definitely needs to be pursued, you know. (“THIS NEEDS”) This needs to be a book. (“RIGHT” “THIS NEEDS — I — I”) I’m just trying to figure out how to go about doing what I have to do. (“UH-HUH”) If you do find that contract — (“YOU KNOW BUT”) you know, fax it to me or whatever.
M: I’ll find it before you leave. (“IF IF IF”)
Q: Whatever would be best to do I’ll do. It’s not a matter of money or anything.If I have to contact the producers or whatever I will. (“I JUST THINK”) I just think this project needs to be done. (“YOU KNOW”) Obviously, it’s going to take some time to have you remember everything. What I can’t understand is the mentality of the producers. Why does someone get the rights to a story without really being passionately committed to really doing justice to the material?
T: They had to do it so fast.
Q: Yeah. Get the rights and then we’ll worry about it later. They do this in a hundred different ways and it’s always, (“SO”) “We’ll work it out.” (“I WONDER”) You know, I’ve heard about so many legal disputes over the years. A piece of paper is a piece of paper. There are always ways of getting out of a contract but you can’t always do what you want. The main thing is maintaining integrity and doing justice to the material.
