On November 23rd 1974, thousands of onlookers crowded the streets and sidewalks of Bridgeport,
Connecticut. They wanted to see with their own eyes what was real and what wasn't. They
wanted to see what would later be described as The Most Haunted House in America.
This isn't the usual ghost story. It's corroborated by over forty hours of interviews that were
conducted with police officials, firemen, paramedics, priests, and more. These witnesses
were many, and they were reliable. They described furniture that moved without provocation,
refrigerators that would hover and televisions that could float. They experienced unexplained
noises and physical attacks.
The following is an abbreviated description of events that were recorded through the course
of a scientific investigation conducted by Boyce Batey. The abstract for this paper is
still on record at Duke University. The evidence includes police reports, house layouts, and
event logs that were captured after dozens of hours of interviews with firsthand witnesses.
In 1974, many had come to 966 Lindley Street with the hopes of seeing a poltergeist. Others
left wishing only to forget.
1. THE PROLOGUE
The three-room bungalow house at 966 Lindley Street was built in 1923 for a shirt manufacturer.
It was a cozy 738 square feet, located in a lower-middle class neighborhood near St.
Vincent Hospital.
Jerry and Laura Goodin would marry and purchase the home in 1960. Jerry grew up with aspirations
to become a priest, but the Great Depression forced him into something more pragmatic.
He became an electrician and worked for 23 years at Harvey Hubbel, a manufacturer of
electrical equipment in Bridgeport.
Laura grew up in a Native American home. She had no playmates her age as a child, and the
isolation caused social problems for her in the future. She struggled to relate and make
friends.
On Halloween of 1961, they had a child: Gerard Goodin Jr. However, he was diagnosed with
cerebral palsy after a few years, and despite their constant care, he died of a fever at
age 6. The Goodins were devastated.
They adopted a daughter less than a year later, a Native American girl named Marcia (Mar-see-a).
She had suffered abuse before joining the Goodins, and raising Gerard Jr. made them
overprotective parents. Marcia struggled to make friends, and she often resorted to playing
alone.
She was bullied in school, and a physical attack led the Goodins to pull her from the
public school and educate her at home.
Some point to the family's troubled background and traumatic losses as the cause for the
activity that would soon come. Those who are most vulnerable are often the most likely
to have that vulnerability exploited, by the supernatural or otherwise.
Shortly after Marcia began to spend all of her time at the Goodin home, strange occurrences
began to happen. It began with the knocking.
2. THE POLTERGEIST
It began with the knocking.
The Goodins made their first panicked report to the Bridgeton police in 1972. The Police
Lieutenant later confirmed that they reported rhythmic pounding against the walls of their
home. The knocking had a clear pattern, and while it began at night, it soon continued
into the daylight hours.
Jerry requested help from his neighbor, Officer John Holsworth, who suggested the two make
a tape recording of the noise. He thought it might help if they could produce evidence
for city officials.
They followed the knocking through the home between the hours of 3 and 6 AM, and the noises
seemed to span the length of the building.
Over the course of weeks and months, they investigated all potential sources for the
knocking.
Firemen surveyed the structure and foundation of the building; gas and plumbing lines were
inspected by technicians.
Law enforcement officials reviewed potential neighborhood suspects like nearby kids or
local construction crews, but all sources were quickly eliminated.
The knocking continued for years, and as it became more frequent and pronounced, new phenomena
began to occur. The Goodins reported seeing spectral hands and sourceless footprints around
the home; they witnessed windows shatter and curtains fall. Afterward, the knocking would
always worsen.
However, the worst was yet to come.
Saturday November 23rd, 1974
[BLURPRINT]
The events of November 23rd began after Jerry and Laura returned from the grocery store.
Jerry found Marcia asleep in her room; however, the television was inexplicably face-down
on her bed. He returned the television to its proper position on a nearby shelf and
joined Laura in the kitchen to put away groceries.
The two claim to have witnessed dishes rattle then levitate from the sink, circling around
the kitchen before smashing into pieces. Jerry tried to investigate the sink, but knives
sprang from the knife block, narrowly missing him. Shortly after, the knife block itself
sheered free from the wall, screws tearing free from their
Their refrigerator, weighing over 300 pounds, floated and rotated in the air. A nearby Zenith
tube television toppled over, crushing two of Laura's toes.
After cleaning up, they tried to remain in denial, blinding themselves to what had occurred.
They turned out the lights in the kitchen and quietly ate dinner in the living room.
Throughout the remainder of the night, the kitchen table and chairs would topple over,
and Jerry would quietly straighten things again.
Several other disturbances occurred that night: curtain rods falling from almost every room
and the knocking began again. Alert and afraid, they remained awake until the early hours
of the morning. They didn't retire until 3 AM.
The next day, over a dozen individuals would enter the home to investigate, and they would
find even more inexplicable and haunting phenomena.
Sunday, November 24th, 1974
When Jerry woke early the next morning, he found the kitchen furniture in disarray again.
Pictures of Christ and crucifixes were torn from the wall as he navigated the home.
Raw nerves and fatigue overtook Jerry and Laura. They tried to console one another,
but they were disturbed by the resounding crash of a wooden bureau crashing in Marcia's
bedroom. It had narrowly missed her.
The three Goodins trickled into the living room where all three recliners opened and
closed, wobbling back and forth, and the TV played the sound of a doorbell opening.
The family could no longer deny their situation. Standing in the living room, they clutched
one another and fled the home, overcome with fear. They felt as if they were alone in the
world, confronting the unknown.
Officer John Holsworth was called back to the home. While the family waited on the porch,
afraid to reenter the home, Officer Holsworth investigated the scene.
The home was is absolute disrepair. The kitchen furniture was overturned again. The recliners
and television sets were canted away from the walls of the home. Dressers had been overturned,
and religious items lay scattered about the ground. Officer Holsworth slowly moved through
the room, straightening the TV absentmindedly as he did, and as soon as he had, the TV levitated
and straightened to its original spot.
The recliners surrounding the Officer began to open and close violently, and the refrigerator
loomed in the kitchen, fast approaching him. He fled the home and radioed to the precinct
for backup. He reported that he was certain he was witnessing something supernatural.
Shortly after, Officers Carl Leonzi and Joe Tomek reported to the home around 10 AM.
The officers entered the home, and they found things in worse disorder than Officer Holsworth
had encountered. After a brief investigation, the officers helped the Goodins right some
of the furniture and television sets. Officer Tomek straightened a television set on the
bureau, and as he let go, it began to float then swing, as if on a pendulum.
A second patrol car reported to the scene with Officers George Wilson and Leroy Lawson
. All five policemen met in the kitchen of the home to brief one another. As they did,
the refrigerator began to levitate again. They investigated the wall, ceiling, and basement
beneath the refrigerator, but they could determine no cause.
Officer Tomek radioed for an ambulance to care for Laura's foot injury and for the fire
department to investigate the home. Nearby blasting had continued for months while the
St. Vincent Hospital was building a new wing. He found it strange that Marcia was calmly
watching cartoons in the living room throughout their visit.
One officer fled the Goodin home as a pinned crucifix spun around its mounting nail before
flying off the wall and hitting him in the chest.
A total of 10 firemen arrived at the scene, and they immediately witnessed a TV topple
off the bureau and break against the floor.
Amidst all the commotion, Jerry sat in the kitchen as his friend, Ted Holsworth attempted
to offer help and console him. The smell of sulfur began to creep into the home. Jerry
broke down and began to cry.
"Everything is coming apart," he said.
One of the arriving firemen called for the department's chaplain, Father Doyle, to come
to the house. As he made the call, Marcia's recliner opened and closed, pitching her forward.
She retreated to the kitchen where a chair flew back from the table and more dishes shattered
in the sink.
The chaplain arrived and found Laura Goodin, distraught. His presence provided no comfort
to her. Surrounded by nearly 20 people, she seemed entirely alone.
"Evil spirits are trying to kill us," she said.
Another officer fled the residence, claiming to have heard the pet cat speaking. He told
his superior officer that he was ready to quit his job before returning to the residence.
A woman from the neighborhood, Mary Pascarella, had attended a lecture on the paranormal recently.
She knew poltergeist activity sometimes centered around a child, and they could be used as
unconscious agents for activity. After hearing about what had happened at 966 Lindley Street,
she called notable paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren.
While the Warrens are known to be paranormal investigators who explored many alleged hauntings,
this would be one of their most dangerous and profound investigations.
At this time, a crowd started to form outside the home in response to the many parked emergency
vehicles. The Warrens arrived with Father William Charbonneau and seminary student Paul
Eno, and they had no trouble finding the home as the throngs of witnesses gave the residence
away.
The Goodins welcomed the assistance of the Warrens as officials had yet to provide any
useful information or guidance.
Paul Eno was instructed to follow Marcia for the duration of the investigation. Ed told
Eno that children are often at the center of hoaxes, and even legitimate activity can
be tarnished by a child's desire for more attention.
The fire department concluded their investigation of the foundation, cellar support, and floor
joists. Another team had visited the nearby construction site at the hospital. Both teams
determined there was no clear cause.
Around 2 PM the police officers wrapped their investigation and began to leave the home.
Officer Tomek retreated to Marcia's room to attempt an experiment. He later recounted
that he stood in her room and thought, "If you can hear me, move something." Pictures,
crosses, and decorative cherubs sprang from their mountings and drove Officer Tomek from
the room.
He later recounted that he would avoid including this in his police report as he was afraid
it would ruin his career.
At 4 PM, reporters from local TV stations and the local WNAB radio station arrived at
the scene, and their story would be picked up by the associated press and circulated
nationally. The Goodins had become a household name.
Those in the crowd reported seeing furniture levitate and deep guttural noises emanating
from the windows of the Goodin home.
Reporters were admitted to the home, and one misidentified a bible as a "Book of the Occult."
Soon, the press began to speculate that Marcia had connections to the magicka. Speculation
began that Marcia had perpetrated the paranormal events; some believed that she was the obsession
of a demonic entity and others that she was at the center of an elaborate hoax.
Lorraine Warren investigated Marcia's room and became overwhelmed with nausea. She reported
her experience to Ed, who witnessed a second-degree burn slowly forming on her wrist. He advised
her to leave the home before something worse happened. Even as she reassured him, her wound
blistered.
The smell of sulfur began to creep through the home, emanating from Marcia's room. It
wasn't until the next day that the Goodins would see the poltergeist for the first time.
Monday November 25th, 1974
The police department left four patrol cars and eight officers at the Goodin home. They
were a protective detail against a crowd that was quickly becoming unruly.
Laura Goodin phoned Father Charbonneau, frantic and fearful. The Goodins had concluded that
whatever was in their home was demonic in nature. They wanted an exorcism to purify
their home, but the church had investigated and found no supernatural cause. Likely, they
did not want to get involved in a case that had become so heavily publicized.
A heavy cold settled over the room, and the overhead lights began to flicker. A cloud
of yellow mist settled, and the outlines of four figures could be seen. Jerry described
this as the moment he was overtaken; he began to unconsciously recite the Mass of the Dead
in Latin. He circled through the home slowly; his voice baritone and not his own as he sprinkled
the priest's holy water into each room. The figures in the mist followed him as he moved
through the home.
Paul Eno, the seminary student who arrived with the Warrens, suspected that the figures
were feeding off the terror of the family. He felt a sense of rage emanating from the
mist. He pushed through the fog to grab Jerry, and he felt a physical presence to one of
the figures. He described feeling a bony structure within the fog, reedy and "bird-like."
With Jerry in hand, he drove everyone outside to the front lawn, and the crowd murmured
as they emerged.
Later, the Warrens and Father Charbboneau reentered the home to perform a house blessing.
They sprinkled holy water in the four corners of the basement.
In the poor light, the Father saw a shadowy figure emerge from the wall and approach him.
The Warrens saw the same figure. To Ed Warren, this was confirmation of the demonic presence
in the home.
The Warrens and Father Charbonneau wouldn't leave the home until 1 AM that night. When
they did, the Father blessed all those who remained in an attempt to prevent the poltergeist
from following them home.
3. THE PRESS AND POLICE
One remaining policeman, Officer DelToro, claimed that Marcia had confessed to him that
she was responsible for the events of the last few days. He relayed this information
to detectives and journalists, even though he couldn't explain how she could have made
the television or refrigerator levitate.
Speculation began to spread that the Goodins, the Warrens, or both, were perpetrating a
hoax.
These rumors drove the Goodins to refuse contact with the Warrens. They wre ready to accept
that Marcia had been the source for the mayhem. They were relieved to have an answer, any
answer, even if it didn't fit all the evidence.
A psychiatric professional was called to the home to evaluate Marcia's mental health. It
was determined that she needed outpatient care, and she was taken to a mental health
clinic. She would be discharged at a later date, cleared with no issues.
The Police Superintendent announced that the case would be closed as a hoax. He had motivation
to close the case at any cost as the around-the-clock protective duties and ongoing investigations
were eating into their budgets. The nation was watching his town descend into chaos as
crowds poured into the street to hear his officers talk about paranormal activity.
"Everything has a rational explanation. This is the work of human powers. I don't believe
in that supernatural stuff…There are no ghosts in Bridgeport. They were victims of
the power of suggestion. Even some of my own men were taken in," the Superintendent said.
Despite the dozens of witnesses, police records, and unexplainable phenomena, the case of the
Lindley Poltergeist was eventually forgotten. However, many questions still remain unanswered
about what really happened at 966 Lindley Street.
To this day, the home still stands. Perhaps something remains hidden within, only waiting
to reveal the answers.