Following Up: "Man of the House"
Monday April 14, 2008 8:14 AM
We recently followed up with Cheryl Byrne, the owner of the home featured on the Paranormal State episode "Man of the House."
Cheryl has remained in touch with the PRS since the investigation, and told us that there has been quite a bit of activity since the team came to visit. One of the more memorable events involved her grandson, Andy.
Cheryl saw that Chip Coffey was in the area for a conference and gave him a call to discuss some of what had been happening. Chip listened to her and asked about a child named Joey. Cheryl told him there was no Joey living there, and he said that he was getting strong feelings about the name. Soon after, Cheryl's husband Bill told her that he'd found a bunch of kids' names written in the cement in the back of the garage — and one was Joey. Around the same time, Adam told her he heard a little boy screaming really loud for his mommy.
"I asked him if it was someone screaming outside, and he said no, it was in the house. He said it was so loud, he had to 'do this,' and covered his ears with his hands. I asked him where in the house he heard it, and he said is was everywhere in the house — upstairs, downstairs, in his room, in the kitchen, everywhere. He was really upset by it."
Cheryl's 95-year-old grandmother moved into the house a few months ago, and when they were interviewing caregivers, one of the interviewees, a registered nurse, asked to speak with Cheryl privately. "She said to me, 'Don't take this the wrong way, but the entire time I've been here, I've felt the presence of a man over my shoulder, watching my every move.' I told her we had a ghost, and that it was a doctor who used to practice in the house, and that he was probably watching to make sure she knew what she was doing."
Many people, both adults and children, have expressed an extreme disliking for the front room, which used to be the doctor's waiting and examination rooms. "Adam is petrified to walk through the front room by himself," she said.
Cheryl's husband Bill, who during the PRS investigation expressed skepticism about the supernatural, has since witnessed several paranormal experiences. Once, an old-fashioned floor lamp on a stand started "doing a dance," rotating and shaking on its own, then stopped. Another time, a 40-pound mirror stored in the loft of the barn fell, and Bill climbed up to investigate. As soon as he reached the top of the stairs, the lights went out. He told the spirits that he didn't want to mess with them and went back down, and the lights came back on as he reached the bottom.
Cheryl really appreciated the house blessing Ryan and the team performed — "It helped calm things down for several months" — and she's performed a similar blessing herself occasionally. She said that "the winter and this time of year are busy" in terms of paranormal activity, but she thinks that once her grandmother, daughter and grandson move out of the house in the next couple months, things will die down.
