In what might be one of the most eerie episodes of the season thus far, Ghost Hunters delivered an intense investigation Wednesday night during the evening’s final double header of the season, showcasing a 200-year-old sugarcane plantation with the episode, “Blood on the Bayou.” Between countless deaths and a bloody history stemming back to the Civil War, the list of potential spirits has not only petrified the owner, but also provided the team with a case unlike any other. Revealing startling results, a jaw-dropping encounter and a new technique that helped bring about plenty of chills, paranormal investigators, Richel Stratton and Brandon Alvis admit to PopCulture.com they didn’t expect the findings they came across with their latest investigation.
“You never expect to find something in particular on investigations, but with this rich history associated with not only the St. Joseph Plantation, but the Felicity Plantation as well and all the surrounding slave shacks and slave quarters that were on the property, you really don’t know what you’re going to get because there’s so many layers to the story,” Alvis told PopCulture.com. “There’s multiple families here, it’s just insane how many people pass through this property.”
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The team’s tech manager and wizard adds while the findings they did receive are “interesting” and “make sense” in accordance to the estate owner Maureen’s call for help, it’s really all about her part in the family lineage associated with the history of St. Joseph Plantation and Felicity Plantation, though her family never owned slaves. “When you think about it, you think about the claims and you think about her love for that family lineage and her being the one to carry that torch of her descendants, it’s pretty amazing,” he said.
With Wilson and the team concluding there were indeed hauntings occurring on the property, Stratton said a lot of it has to do with the fact that the “plantation has stayed in the family, so it’s home for them” and it was their happy place.
“There were a lot of deaths there, but there were also people born. Like babies were born there, and died there, like it was their whole entire life and I think that maybe it’s an intelligent haunt because their family’s still there,” she said.
Piggybacking off her thoughts, Alvis suggests a large part in the nature of the hauntings is about the familial connections. “[It’s] something we’ve noticed within hauntings, and especially intelligent, hauntings,” he said. “So that familial bond, that familial connection is strong. Even to death, you know what I mean? That love for each other, that love for your family, that bonds transcends death.”
While they experienced quite a bit of activity in their investigation, one of the rooms on the estate that caused quite a commotion for the team was Dr. Cazimir Mericq’s office upon using the sanctuary technique, which saw Alvis, Grant Wilson and Mustafa Gatollari experiencing EMF spikes around the designated perimeters.
“Dr Mericq’s room, where we know not only lived, but died, was a very spooky place,” Alvis admits. “It did have a very kind of spooky other worldly feeling to it, but here’s one thing that really wasn’t mentioned in detail a lot in the episode: Dr. Mericq was actually the doctor for all the plantations, and the area that we were at is called Plantation Alley.”
Alvis adds there’s “all kinds of various plantations on that stretch of highway,” and the doctor was a man who would go through all these plantations.
“If you go to say the neighboring Oak Alley Plantation and you go visit that place and take a tour, there’s a photo of Dr. Mericq there as well,” he adds. “So, his history is associated with that entire area and all the plantations, but we were able to be in the very room where he lived and died, and it does have a spooky feeling. Looking at that claim of multiple people seeing this man with a white coat and blood on it is very interesting. But it definitely did have a spooky feeling to it.”
While the rooms of the opulent estates met with plenty of paranormal activity, Stratton admits to PopCulture.com the slave shacks were relatively quiet, though her co-team leader, Kristen Luman had heard the voice of a woman singing while in one of the shacks with Daryl Marston.
“I wasn’t really experiencing anything too much in there, so we didn’t stay in there too long. Also, I know this makes me sound like a horrible investigator, but there were swarms of mosquitoes in there. Because it’s dark, you can’t see where they’re at [and] I was apparently standing in the swarm,” she laughed. “So, it kind of took me out of my element a little bit with being aware of my surroundings essentially, and the feelings of what was going on.”
That said, she adds how walking out of the sick shack, the site where ill slaves were taken for treatment and quarantine, left her with a heavy feeling. “It definitely felt a little bit heavier. But once we got in there it was quiet, and then we had a commotion with Brian, [Murray].”
The Ghost Hunters season finale airs Oct. 30 at 10 p.m. ET on A&E.
Photo credit: A&E Networks
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