Investigation Report for Private House, Dogsthorpe
8th July 2003
Brief History of the building
The 3-bedroom house was built approx. 21 years ago and is situated on a housing estate in Dogsthorpe, Peterborough. Historical research by Stuart Orme has shown that the land the house and estate is now situated on was previously fields with a drovers road running somewhere nearby. The present Occupants had been in the House for approx. 1 year and 4 months at the time of the first interview. They believed that the house had previously been rented out to several different tenants.
Reported Accounts of possible Paranormal Activity in the House
The initial interview was conducted with Katie and Kelvin.
Kelvin's two-year-old daughter Siann, who visited and stayed regularly had often mentioned to them quiet casually in conversation that she talked to a lady upstairs by the name of Mrs Copper. She had described her as 24 years old, brown curly hair and wearing glasses and brown clothing. The lady had on at least one occasion told Siann that she was always to walk on the pavement.
On one occasion Katie's youngest sister who was three at the time, visited the house and came down from upstairs and also told them that they had been talking to Mrs cooper, in the large front bedroom and she had described her in the same detail as Siann. Siann had always seen Mrs Copper in both the front bedrooms only.
Katie had reported that they had also had a few odd instances that they had witnessed as follows:
- Mechanical/electrical toys had on occasion self activated.
- The living room window blinds adjustment rod had on one occasion been swinging from side to side with no natural explanation
- Katie had heard on one occasion the front door open and footsteps go up the stairs. An investigation had shown that no one was in the house although the front door was open.
- Taps had been left running in the upstairs bathroom. This was noted on our second visit.
- Katie had heard a loud knocking on her bedroom door at 6.30am after our initial visit.
Preliminary Investigation by Cambridge Paranormal Society
C.P.S team members present ( First Visit)
- Martin
- Paul
- Stuart
The purpose of our first visit to the house was to establish the facts and conduct an interview with Katie and Kelvin. After the initial interview we were unsure in what way to proceed as we felt that there was insufficient current activity to warrant a full investigation. We asked them to keep notes of any further activity and to check with Sianns natural Mother to see if she had talked about or indeed seen Mrs Copper in her house in Birmingham.
After leaving the house Katie made contact again and said she had spoken to Sianns mother in Birmingham. She was aware of Mrs copper as Siann often talked about her up there but had not as far as she was aware seen her there. She only mentioned Mrs copper as being a lady who lived at daddy's house. She had thought that maybe Katie and Kelvin had a lodger. Katie also mentioned at this time to us that she had heard someone recently knocking on her bedroom door at 6.20 am
We decided that maybe a second visit was necessary but this time we should take along spiritualist medium Bill Parkin to see if he could connect with any further information that we could work on.
C.P.S team members present ( Second Visit)
- Martin
- Paul
- Dave
- Bill (Medium) and wife Mary
As is always the case Bill was given no information at all before the visit and was taken by us to the address. Bill was only aware that the case was in Peterborough.
On arrival to the house Katie and Kelvin where asked not say anything until Bill had finished his work. Bill immediately went upstairs and through dowsing tuned in to energy in the doorways of the small front bedroom and the large front bedroom. No energy was felt by Bill in connection with the other bedroom or bathroom. Bill assured Kelvin that the energy was not in anyway bad.
Sitting downstairs Bill quietly tuned into the spirit level while we all sat around generally chatting. He then told Katie that the sprit he had here now was linked in some way to her. There was a connection with the family maybe one or two generation's back. ( 1 ) He described the spirit as female and in her teenage years and that he had a link with twins and with five in the family. ( 2 ) He told Katie that this woman kept saying she was trying to hard at something. He was unable to get her name but maybe the letter S was significant, but not sure if it was first or surname. ( 3 )
At this point Katie was finding it difficult to associate any of the information with herself and asked if it could be for Kelvin. Bill insisted that it was connected to her.
He told Katie that there was a large dog in sprit, that was a one-man kind of dog and gave an anniversary link with October which was connected to Katie's parents. Katie was able to identify with this information. He said that the lady in spirit was connected to Katie's Mother in some way and that she had died at an early age from consumption / TB ( 4 ). He told her that she visited sometimes at night and walked across the landing and that she often turned the taps on in the bathroom. It was at this point that Katie seemed puzzled as she often got up in the morning and found the taps running but had simply assumed that Kelvin had left them on. Bill described the spirit as female about 18 years old, slim build and dark hair ( 5 ) and that she was not the youngest child in the family ( 6 ). He also said that there was someone around today with the same first name as she had. ( 7 )
The spirit kept repeating that the Katie was trying to hard at something, pushed into something or trying to hard within the family in some way. Bill then connected to Kelvin and said that someone that he had known had passed away about a year ago. They where not family and it may have been due to an accident. Kelvin confirmed that a friend from his work had been killed in an accident. Bill said that his friend was trying to push him to do something he had always really wanted to do and that he should pursue that ambition.
At this point Katie decided to call her grandmother as she had remembered her once mentioning something about someone whom had died of TB. She rang and told her of the description Bill had given to her of the young lady. The following verification was given to Bill and Katie over the phone:
- Her grandmother was able to confirm that her Aunt, Katie's Great, great, great aunt died very young at the age of 18 in 1904
- There was five in the family
- Her name was Elizabeth Skeels
- She had died of an epidemic in hospital which has since been confirmed was Galloping Consumption a form of TB
- She had short dark hair
- She was not the youngest child
- Elizabeth was grandmothers middle name and also the middle name of Katies great grandmother who was born after Elizabeth died.
Dave and Martin checked out the landing area for EMF and Temperature but no anomalies where apparent. Dave did notice the back bedroom door open slightly. A check of the bedroom revealed that there was a small window open but curtains where closed and not moving. The air outside that evening was very still. We tried to replicate a draught to make the door move but were unable to make the door move my means of a normal draught
The sitting was concluded and we left the property.
Conclusions of investigation
This was an interesting case in that the activity was current and that a small child of only two years old had talked about the lady as if she was totally natural. Her description had also been verified by another small child of three years old, who had no apparent prior knowledge of the Lady. Unfortunately we where unable to talk to the girls. Bills visit to the house was interesting in the information that we where able to verify via the phone to Katie's grandmother in regards to the sprit that Bill had picked up linked to Katie. Although at looking through the descriptions given by the young girls it does not seem to tie up with the girls 'Mrs Copper'. Unfortunately with out any more information at this point we are unable to verify if the spirit that Bill was in communication with or the lady seen by the girls is one and the same.
Updates 11.9.03
Since we last saw the family. Katie has reported that quite alot of activity has been taking place , taps being turned all on the time, Elizabeth also opens a door when you ask her to, if she is there. Katie has seen a white shadow out of the corner of her eye on a number of occasions, and a friend of hers also saw the same thing when she was visiting the house. She had taken some pictures recently which showed a lot of orbs , but only ones taken in the living room. The tv remotes keep going missing and they find them in the front bedroom, which they never use unless Siann comes to stay. She hadn't been to stay at the time that the remotes went missing, this has happened 3 times. There has also been lots of banging and footsteps.
Our Quest for the Truth Continues
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