Horrific Hauntings : The Haunting of the Screaming House of Union, Missouri

 Trying to move on from the untimely death of his wife, a corporate trainer named Steven LaChance moved into a huge house in Union, Missouri with his kids in the May of 2001. With three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a large front porch garden and a basement, this house was considerably spacious compared to the cramped apartment they had previously stayed in. On the day the family moved in, a sedan slowed down near the house and it caught Steven’s attention. As Steven kept staring at the car, its windows rolled down and the passengers shouted, “hope you will get along okay here”. Before he could ask them anything more, the car drove away extremely fast.

A Portrayal of the Screaming House

Eventful Initial Days for the LaChance Family

 While unpacking their luggage after moving in, the family noticed a picture frame with the image of an angel constantly falling from the wall of the living room. In fact, it was not just the picture frame, the family also found it really hard to keep the other objects in place as they kept falling off. At night, Steven’s daughter reported seeing the closet door open on its own and she heard boxes move in the neighbouring room.

 During their initial days at the house, the children started noticing that their neighbours would cross the road when they approached their house in order to avoid getting close to it. Also, when Steven and his children approached them to find the reason behind this odd behaviour, they were too hesitant to talk to them. Thus, the family’s initial days at the house passed with them rearranging picture frames and things that were magically falling off, listening to strange noises in the night and trying to find out the reason behind the strange behaviour of their neighbours.

An Extremely Paranormal Day

 One day, while one of Steven’s sons ventured into the basement to retrieve the garden hose for his father, he started feeling an eerily dark presence around him. With the presence starting to get on his nerves, the 10-year-old started running out of the basement with the hose in his hands. While he was running up the basement stairs, he heard loud heavy footsteps following him and when he turned to see what it was, he saw a huge black figure chasing him. With the figure almost closing him down, he ran out of the basement screaming at the top of his voice and closed the door. Hearing the screams of his son, Steven rushed to the basement door in the kitchen only to find his son standing in the middle of a puddle of his own urine. After listening to his son's claims, Steven went into the basement to investigate but he found nothing unordinary inside it.

 On the evening of the very same day, while the kid was walking out of the bathroom, he saw a huge figure run down the stairs beside him. The extremely huge figure had a face that resembled a clown with no eyes and it was running towards him as if it wanted to hurt him. Petrified, the kid ran towards Steven’s room screaming for his life. Hearing the claims of his son, went to investigate once again. As he couldn’t find any evidence for his claims, he put the blame on his son’s imagination and warned his other two kids to not tease their brother. That night, however, Steven would find himself in the shoes of his son.

 That night, soon after he fell asleep, Steven was bolted out of his sleep by a deafening noise. When he slowly opened his eyes, he saw the figure of an old man wearing a red flannel shirt standing in the doorway in front of him through his blurry vision. This figure stood motionless at the doorway and with its emotionless face, it appeared as if it was staring at him. With his face growing pale in fear, Steven rubbed his eyes to get a better look but by the time he opened his eyes after rubbing them, the figure was already gone. Steven tried to convince himself saying that he was making it up because of stress but he would be proved wrong as strange physical happenings followed.

Horror Intensifies

 Following this paranormal eventful day, the lights in the house started turning on by themselves. Despite the family carefully turning the lights off before leaving the house, they would always be greeted by a fully lit house every time they returned. With the help of his father, Steven checked the circuit boards of the house but they seemed to be in perfect shape and they showed no signs of malfunction. Also, the family and its visitors started feeling strange electrical charges while they entered different rooms of the house. They felt as if a warmth passed through them and it made their hair stand straight.

 With time, the doors of the house started opening and shutting on their own, and the family started seeing a huge dark figure in the doorway of the rooms. The kids dreaded being alone and found it hard to even go from one room to another alone. 

Screams Commence

 One day, while Steven was taking things out of his closet, he started feeling an eerily dark presence around him. With a strong sense of being watched, he turned around to investigate. When he turned, he saw the dark figure standing right in front of him and it was staring at him with its featureless face. Scared by the intensity of the paranormal around him, Steven decided to leave the house. So, picking up his car keys, he calmly instructed his children to stop what they were doing and follow him to the car. As the family were on their way to leave the house, “loud, painful, torturing and agonizing” screaming started to pour out of the walls of the building. With the screams getting deafeningly louder, the family ended up racing out of the house into their car.

 When Steven turned his head towards the house while running away, he saw the dark figure standing near the window of the upstairs bedroom and it appeared to be staring at the fleeing family. The next day, when Steven went back into the house to investigate, he did not find anything that could have caused the screams he heard the previous night. A few days later, the agonizing screams returned.

The LaChance Family moves out

 One night, while Steven was speaking to his mother on call, the doors behind him started rattling. The intensity of this rattling sound slowly escalated and it evolved into agonizing screams. The house began to shake and a foul odour monopolised the air within. Steven put down the phone and ran towards his kids’ room but he was locked inside the room as the rattling door shut close on its own. As he was pounding and tugging the shut door, Steven started feeling the presence of something evil behind him. 

 Along with the screaming of the house, he started hearing the screams of his children and the disembodied voice of a man. With the sound of the screams exponentially increasing, Steven started praying and the door finally opened. Steven rushed towards his kids to make sure they were safe and the family ended up moving out of the house in the July of the same year.

A New Family

 A few years later, through a paranormal forum, Steven got to know that the house was being inhibited by a new family. This family was made up of Linda, her husband, her teenage daughter and her grandson. Steven approached them to inform them about the paranormal nature of the house but upon listening to Linda he understood that she knew it better.

 According to Linda, while alone in the house, she would hear someone breathing right next to her. Unexplainable footsteps inside the house were so common that the family started getting normalized to it. Also, the electrical strangeness inside the house had never changed. Creepy, isn’t it? But these are just the less intense paranormal events Linda and her family experienced.

 One night, the police showed up on the doorstep of the house claiming to have received a suicide call from the house. The family members were sound asleep and they had no clue about what the police were taking. Also, things inside the house randomly catch fire and the dolls in the house would often be found with their hair cut short. What devastated the family members most was finding their cat dead on the floor of the hall with its back and neck broke like a twig.

The New Family moves out

 Fearful for his new friend and her family, Steven felt he had to help. To get a better understanding of the paranormal events in the house, Steven and Linda invited a clairvoyant woman to help them. When this woman was walking upstairs, she was lifted three feet off the floor by something invisible and thrown against the wall. The woman was completely terrified and she ran out of the house in horror.

 Before leaving, she told them that their house was “Thoroughly Haunted” and she suggested Linda move out of the house as soon as she could. According to this woman, the basement of this house served as a highway for evil. With not enough money to move out of the house, Linda continued to live in the house with her family.

 With time, this house made Linda and her daughter fantasize about killing each other. This got to a point where Linda started locking herself up at night. If she failed to do it even for a night, she would find her daughter standing over her in the middle of the night. Linda started seeing scratches and bitemarks on her shoulders and arms while waking up and she reported being assaulted by a large black entity thrice. With the paranormal events getting on her nerve, Linda started to become mentally unstable. After trying to kill her husband, she was institutionalized. After this event, Linda and her family moved out of the house as well.

Investigation

 With the details about the paranormal events in the house spreading, different mediums and research groups started visiting the property trying to find an explanation. Almost all of them confirmed that this house had a demonic infestation.

 During his first visit to the property, an investigator named Greg could only stay inside the house for a couple of minutes. The moment he stepped into the house, he instantly got a dreadful headache and he was overwhelmed with horrid nausea. When he went back into the house, he reported experiencing inexplicable temperature changes in the basement of the house. According to Greg, this house was cursed and no one could escape it.

 A Missouri paranormal research investigator named Alex lost his mind after becoming enchanted by the paranormal entity inside the house. He had reportedly brought Black Magic books into the house and demanded to perform a blood-letting ceremony in the basement during which he would bind the demons to him. Denied any further access to the property, he is said to have become homicidal and suicidal and thus he was institutionalized.

 After investigation, the Catholic Church released a report with 156 pages concluding that the occurrences in the house represented “Demonic infestation, Obsession, Oppression and Possession”.