Latest / Mystery Archives Episodes / The Untold Story Of The Terrifying Corvo Family Haunting - Connecticut

Transcript

The Untold Story Of The Terrifying Corvo Family Haunting - Connecticut · Mystery Archives Episodes

0:00
When a man returns to his childhood home many years later,
0:05
he quickly discovers that his former bastion of joy has turned
0:09
into a fortress of evil. As he and others are attacked by
0:14
dark supernatural manifestations, will they
0:18
survive, or will they be dragged down to the depths of hell
0:22
itself? This is the untold story of the
0:26
Corvo Family Haunting, also known as the Well to Hell case,
0:31
but you'll soon understand why that is.
0:34
And this story, like so many others here on the channel, is
0:37
not one I would recommend that you watch alone or in the dark,
0:41
unless you enjoy a challenge. Now let us begin.
1:07
Cromwell, Connecticut, a place known for picturesque beauty and
1:12
its traditional suburban lifestyle.
1:15
However, tucked away behind these ideal neighborhoods lies a
1:19
darkness that seems to flow wherever the Connecticut River
1:23
runs. Our story begins here.
1:26
In 2011, a man named Mark Corvo had just inherited his childhood
1:31
home. Sadly, his parents had passed
1:34
away recently and had left him an old, one-of-a-kind Victorian
1:39
house. Deciding to move back to town
1:42
and to take over the house, he now found himself upon its front
1:46
porch. As he begins moving his boxes of
1:49
things inside the house, a flood of memories came with them.
1:54
His family, who was Italian, used to always hold family
1:58
gatherings here, which alongside his fond childhood memories made
2:03
the entire situation bittersweet.
2:05
Mark plans on renting rooms within the home, but first needs
2:09
to handle some cosmetic updates to the house as he begins
2:13
painting the first night he moves in to get a head start on
2:17
things. Little did he know that in this
2:20
large house, he may not be as alone as he thinks.
2:24
As he brushes paint onto the walls in one of the rooms, Mark
2:28
begins to hear what he thinks are footsteps resonating from
2:32
elsewhere in the house. Almost as soon as his attention
2:36
shifts away from his brush and towards the noise, as he glances
2:40
over to the door and towards the hallway, the door to the room
2:44
suddenly slams shut completely on its own.
2:48
Startled, and thinking that perhaps someone had seen him
2:52
move in and was playing a prank on him, he rushes into the
2:55
hallway. It begins a sweep of the house.
2:59
However, after several minutes, he finds no one.
3:04
Unsure of what to think about the strangeness he had just
3:07
experienced and perhaps rationalizing things in his
3:10
mind, he decides to go ahead and lay down for bed that night.
3:15
However, little did he know that the events of this night perhaps
3:20
wouldn't be the last. Over the course of three to four
3:24
weeks, Mark gets the side of the house where the rooms will be
3:28
where he wants it and starts advertising several rooms for
3:32
rent. The first man who decides to do
3:35
a walkthrough with him as a potential renter is a local
3:38
fireman by the name of Sean Angus.
3:41
Sean, who had just become a fireman at that time, was still
3:44
living with his mother and wanted to get out and start
3:47
living his own life. The home was near both his
3:50
family as well as the fire station that he worked at, so
3:54
after taking a look around, he decided to become Mark's first
3:58
tenant. Shortly after Sean, Mark has
4:00
another person who rents another room within the house, a woman
4:04
who had just moved to the area whose name was Ashley.
4:08
With several tenants now in place, Mark shifts his focus
4:12
back onto his continued restoration efforts and other
4:15
parts of the house. One afternoon, he's fixing
4:18
things up within the basement of the home when Sean, who was off
4:22
work that day, offers to assist him.
4:25
As Mark steps away to grab a tool, Sean can't help but notice
4:29
a large circular object covered with a tarp towards the center
4:33
of the room. He cautiously begins to approach
4:37
it and slowly uncovering it, he exposes a well opening.
4:42
As he glances into its depths, he sees nothing but darkness
4:46
below, and a strange feeling as if someone or something is
4:51
hiding down there grips him. As Mark returns, he notices Sean
4:56
observing the well and tells him that it's been there as long as
5:00
he can remember. With the home having been built
5:03
in 1741, it was long abandoned before he ever grew up there.
5:08
The two would then continue their work.
5:11
Later that evening. As wind blew through the trees
5:14
outside and the residents within the home were heading to bed,
5:18
something unseen was watching them all from the shadows.
5:23
Shortly after dozing off, Mark is suddenly woken up by the
5:27
sound of heavy footsteps and bangs.
5:30
Thinking that perhaps it was the home just making noises
5:33
naturally as a result of being old, he writes them off.
5:37
However, he's not the only one who hears them.
5:41
Over the weeks to come, he is approached and has several
5:45
conversations with both Sean and Ashley regarding the sounds
5:49
within the house, particularly those of that first night.
5:53
While Sean understands and thinks that it could just be the
5:56
age of the home as well, despite his inner voice telling him
6:00
otherwise, Ashley believes that it could be something very
6:03
different. She comes to her own conclusion
6:06
that the home is haunted in Mark's own words.
6:11
She would tell me often that there was a lot of activity at
6:14
night, that she had seen this or that.
6:17
I didn't minimize it, but I didn't really give it the full
6:20
credence that I probably should have.
6:23
As a result of this conviction, Ashley begins studying the
6:26
paranormal and attempts to find a way to make herself feel safe
6:30
while living in the house. Several weeks after these series
6:35
of conversations, Mark is doing some yard work when he's
6:38
suddenly startled at the sight of smoke emerging from Ashley's
6:42
room in the house. Terrified that she was in danger
6:46
and that the home was on fire as smoke billows out the window, he
6:51
drops everything and rushes to her aid.
6:54
As he enters and runs into the house, he finds himself at the
6:58
front of her door and begins banging on it frantically.
7:02
He's able to shoulder it open, and when he does, he comes face
7:07
to face with the source of the smoke.
7:10
However, it's not what he expected.
7:13
Instead of flames leaking the walls, he instead sees Ashley
7:17
fanning a bundle of herbs and wandering the room.
7:20
She's completely unfazed by his presence, almost as if she's in
7:25
a trance. It takes several seconds, but
7:29
Mark finally is able to get her attention.
7:31
She explains that she was a white witch and that she was
7:35
attempting to cleanse her space because she didn't feel safe
7:39
that there were malevolent forces within the house.
7:43
Although the concept is completely alien to Mark, he's
7:46
able to calm down and doesn't care what she does as long as
7:50
she didn't catch the house on fire and remains safe.
7:54
Ashley then tells him that she's taking a trip to New Orleans and
7:58
that a friend of hers was going to be staying at her apartment.
8:02
Mark, of course, agreed and wished her well on her trip.
8:06
Several days later, when Ashley departs, her friend Sadra
8:10
arrives to stay. Little did she know that she
8:14
would not be the only guest that night.
8:17
As the sky darkened in the dead of night, lightning flashed and
8:21
rain began to pelt the old colonial.
8:24
All the while Sadra was asleep in her friend's bed.
8:28
She is suddenly ripped out of her dream state when the
8:32
blankets are suddenly torn off of her body.
8:35
Upon frantically glancing around trying to discover the source,
8:39
she sees nothing. Then multiple drawers on nearby
8:43
dressers begin to open and close simultaneously with no one there
8:48
to see. Screaming in pure terror, she
8:52
runs out of the house and into the pouring rain.
8:57
The next day, she returns to the house, but only to give Mark his
9:01
key. She accuses him of running some
9:04
kind of scam or that he had something to do with what had
9:08
happened to her the night before.
9:11
Mark takes the key but is very confused as she leaves the
9:16
premises, never to be seen again.
9:18
Mark begins to wonder if my tenants, they're friends and I
9:24
have all heard and experienced different things, that perhaps
9:28
there was something going on here, something that he couldn't
9:32
understand, and whatever it was, it was becoming alarming.
9:38
In the days following these events, Ashley would return from
9:42
her trip to New Orleans, and accompanying her were two
9:45
friends that she had made along the trip.
9:48
Mark, upon greeting her and meeting her friends, respected
9:52
her right to have guests within her apartment.
9:55
However, in later interviews, he would explain that something
9:59
seemed off about both of them and that Ashley's demeanor and
10:03
energy seemed much darker in comparison to when she had left.
10:08
Little did he know, however, just what their intentions truly
10:12
were. Ashley's friends were originally
10:15
from Haiti and were practitioners of a form of
10:18
witchcraft or voodoo that originates there.
10:22
That night, after the sun goes down and the moon rises above,
10:27
the trio would make their way into the attic of the house.
10:31
Once there, they began setting up for a ritual.
10:35
The objective of their ritual was to try and contact the
10:38
spirits Ashley had told them were within the house and to
10:42
banish them using various offerings within the attic.
10:47
An electric charge seemed to permeate the very air that they
10:50
all breathed. After several minutes of chance,
10:55
the ritual is complete. The group believed they were
10:59
successful, but were they? The next morning the Haitian men
11:04
would leave and Ashley nervously told Mark about what they had
11:08
done. She told him that in order to
11:11
banish the spirits that they had offered many things in.
11:15
One stipulation was that if Mark ever sold the house, that if the
11:20
ownership ever left his bloodline that he would die.
11:24
Following that day, Ashley seemed to become more and more
11:28
paranoid. She had come to believe that she
11:31
too had been offered to the spirits and that she was now in
11:35
a fight for the sake of her very soul.
11:38
In Mark's words, she told me that if the spirits within the
11:41
house still remained that she believed that they were evil and
11:46
were growing stronger. She began burning sage on a
11:49
daily basis, among other things, and soon appears to be in a
11:53
constant state of distress. One day, shortly after the
11:57
events, she seems to finally crack under the pressure of it
12:01
all in a dramatic fashion. She frantically departed midday
12:06
after telling Mark that she couldn't take it anymore.
12:10
She then disappeared back out into the world and he would
12:13
never see or hear from her again.
12:17
What further proved to him that she truly believed what she had
12:20
been saying was that she had left all of her things behind.
12:24
Confused and concerned, Mark takes a step back and tries to
12:29
make sense of it all. How could this childhood
12:32
Wonderland from his memories have become such a hellscape?
12:37
Could there truly be something evil lurking within its walls?
12:41
Only time would tell. Now that Ashley was gone, Mark,
12:45
his tenant Sean, and Sean's girlfriend Jessica remained in
12:49
the house one night as a turbulent thunderstorm raged
12:53
outside. Another kind of storm was
12:57
brewing within as a series of lightning flashes light up the
13:01
room. Jessica's woken up by a burst of
13:04
Thunder. As her eyes circle the room, she
13:08
tries to regain her comfort, go back to bed.
13:13
A door within their apartment suddenly opens.
13:18
They're seemingly fazed. Between the door and their room
13:21
is an apparition of a creature. Terrified, Jessica tries to wake
13:27
Sean, but he won't budget entering fight or flight mode,
13:32
and not wanting to stick around to see whatever this thing was,
13:36
she runs out of the apartment and out of the house into the
13:39
pouring rain. She frantically gets into her
13:43
car and starts it up. As she's getting ready to
13:47
depart, Sean suddenly runs towards her car and asks her
13:51
just what was going on. Upon telling him, he believes
13:56
that she was dreaming, but she says that she knows what she saw
14:01
and she decides to leave. The following morning she calls
14:06
him and tells him that she will never again step foot into that
14:10
house. As a result of this.
14:13
John decides to tell Mark that in order to make his
14:16
relationship work that he was going to have to find them
14:19
another place to live, and he then spends the afternoon moving
14:23
their things out. Upset and truly concerned now
14:27
given how much had taken place within the house to others, Mark
14:31
decides to do some research of his own online and decides that
14:35
he'll try and investigate what was happening himself.
14:38
He didn't want to try and bring anyone else, such as other
14:41
tenants into the situation if he was just walking them into an
14:45
infestation of sorts. So with deciding to try and
14:49
gather evidence such as Evps or electronic voice phenomena, he
14:55
begins alone. But will he be successful in his
14:59
endeavors? With a digital recorder in hand,
15:03
Mark goes room by room, asking probing questions to whatever
15:07
forces may be lurking there. Upon entering the attic, he
15:12
finds the symbols the Haitian men had drawn on the planks of
15:16
wood overhead, and soon finds a strange altar as well.
15:20
There, upon a symbol etched in chalk was the carcass of a dead
15:25
bird and a wooden cross, along with an empty alcohol bottle.
15:31
He now believes that if there were spirits within the house
15:35
that they may have been stirred up due to these strange
15:38
practices, or even worse, something evil could have been
15:42
conjured. In the days and nights that
15:45
follow, Mark continues to ask the presence within the home
15:49
questions in hopes of getting proof of their existence on his
15:53
digital recorder. He wasn't having any luck, but
15:58
that was until one night when he entered the basement.
16:02
As he walked around the room questioning and came feet within
16:06
the well there, he hears something that chills him to the
16:10
bone. Suddenly, as if there was
16:13
someone or something trapped within, he hears A rapturous
16:17
scream come from deep down inside the well.
16:21
Then Mark's words. It was in that moment that I
16:25
knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that my home was haunted.
16:30
As he calls out into the shadows, asking just what they
16:33
wanted, he begins to hear a strange language the likes of
16:38
which he doesn't recognize. Knowing now that he was in
16:42
serious trouble with what was in the house, he seeks professional
16:47
help with figuring the whole situation out.
16:51
Mark ends up making contact with a paranormal research group
16:54
known as the Ghosts of New England Research Society.
16:58
He speaks with a man named Curt Knapp, who himself has quite a
17:02
unique history. As a former police officer
17:05
turned paranormal investigator, he brings a degree of legitimacy
17:09
and a thorough eye to investigating cases.
17:12
Concerned with how distressed Mark seemed to be at the
17:15
situation he was experiencing and wanting to first and
17:19
foremost determine if the haunting was genuine, the to
17:22
arrange for a meeting Within days, Kurt is sitting in Mark's
17:26
kitchen discussing just what all had taken place there in Kurt's
17:31
own words. In police work, they tell you
17:33
that if someone isn't telling the truth that their story will
17:36
begin to change in about an hour or so after they start talking.
17:40
Mark was as genuine in the end as he was in the beginning.
17:44
Prior to meeting with Mark Curtin, the society had done
17:48
some preliminary research on the history of the property just to
17:51
see if there could have been any reason for it to be haunted.
17:55
And what they found was that the home was originally built in
17:58
1741 by a sea captain that was active in the slave trade in the
18:03
West Indies and that slaves were indeed kept at the property.
18:08
Mark then decides to play Curt the Evps that he had captured.
18:12
Chillingly, they together identify roughly 6 distinct
18:16
voices throughout them. Combining the historical
18:19
knowledge, Marks genuine testimony, and his disturbing
18:23
Evps, Kurt decides that the team needs to investigate.
18:28
But will they uncover the source of the paranormal torment and
18:32
solve this crisis once and for all?
18:35
Several days later, Kurt and his paranormal team arrived to begin
18:39
the investigation. Alongside team members and their
18:43
array of gear, including cameras, sensors and digital
18:47
recorders, Curtis also brought along the group's sidekick, a
18:51
woman named Karen Hollis. Karen's first impression of the
18:55
home was that the atmosphere seemed to teem with the
18:58
heaviness like an oppressive smog.
19:01
To begin the investigation, the team places devices and members
19:06
on every level of the house to attempt to be successful in
19:09
capturing additional EVP recordings.
19:13
As they call out questions to the presence, Karen, who finds
19:17
her way to the basement, can't help but notice that the energy
19:20
seems to be coalescing around the old well in the middle of
19:24
the room. In her words.
19:27
As I stepped closer to it, I realized that this was more than
19:30
a well. It was deep and dark and
19:34
foreboding. As she peers into its steps, a
19:37
sudden burst of energy hits her in the chest from the opening.
19:41
She is suddenly overcome with a deep sense of dread and anxiety.
19:46
She then begins to experience a vision.
19:49
In that vision, she felt the presence of a little girl come
19:53
into her body. The little girl was once a slave
19:56
and was concerned about her mother, who had been taken away
19:59
to see a doctor because she was sick and sadly never returned.
20:04
The poor child never knew what happened to her.
20:07
Within several seconds she feels the presence leave.
20:11
Karen is now convinced that the well that stands before her
20:14
isn't just that. It's a portal between this world
20:17
and the next, a vortex where many souls were coming and
20:22
going, entities that were both good and bad.
20:26
Unaware of Karen's experience in the basement, Kurt and other
20:30
team members are in the attic conducting their own segment of
20:33
the investigation. Here they come across the voodoo
20:36
altar and symbols. They can immediately sense evil
20:40
radiating from them. Within hours, the team decides
20:44
to pack up their gear and take their findings back to the
20:47
central office to come through just what they had captured.
20:51
Among many photos and Evps, they came to the conclusion that the
20:55
home has been a harbor for lost souls since its inception, and
20:59
that when Ashley and her friends conducted their ritual in the
21:02
attic that instead of banishing spirits, they conjured up dark,
21:07
potentially demonic horses which then made their way into the
21:11
home through the portal within the old well.
21:13
Upon their convictions curtain, Karen visit Mark once again at
21:17
his home and explain their findings to him.
21:21
Karen, who has had a feeling about Mark, decides to question
21:24
him about his childhood within the house.
21:27
Mark, who hadn't shared this previously, discusses with her
21:31
that he had experienced a few strange things in the house
21:34
growing up, such as hearing footsteps, seeing objects move,
21:39
and oddly that he would sleepwalk and typically be found
21:43
just feet away from the old well.
21:45
Karen, given this information, believes that Mark is an empath,
21:49
which means that he can see and experience spirits.
21:53
However, this means for him that if he wants to continue to live
21:57
in the home that he would have to get used to seeing and
22:00
interacting with all aspects of the spirit world and even those
22:04
that would seek to harm him. Although there would be no way
22:07
to fully cleanse the property, or so they believed, they did
22:11
counsel Mark and just what he could do to protect himself and
22:15
manage living in the house, including telling him not to
22:18
antagonize or engage with them. Following this advice, Karen and
22:23
Kurt would depart in the days to come.
22:26
Mark takes the team's advice and does what he can, deciding to
22:30
further concentrate on renovating the house to keep his
22:33
mind off things, He finds himself on a ladder, fixing the
22:36
gutters on the roof. As he hammers away, he begins
22:40
feeling the presence of evil surrounding him.
22:43
Becoming angry, he decides to challenge just whatever these
22:47
things were, unfortunately ignoring the team's advice.
22:52
Amidst his yelling, the latter is suddenly yanked backwards and
22:57
Mark falls. Given the height of the fall, he
23:00
breaks his back and, according to the doctors, should have
23:04
died. He spends the next three weeks
23:07
in the hospital and then returns back to that very house.
23:12
Seeing his anger as being his downfall, literally, Mark
23:16
decides to alter his perspective on the entire situation and to
23:20
reform his outlook to be more positive.
23:23
He does this by remaining steadfast in his personal faith.
23:28
Despite the terrifying encounters with the paranormal
23:31
presence that lurked within the walls of his house, Mark Corvo
23:35
decides to continue living there.
23:37
Perhaps he too will join them one day.
23:42
Before we go, I did want to share some interesting details
23:45
about this case. First off, a good chunk of this
23:49
information in particular I'm citing from the Ghosts of New
23:53
England Research Society's website, which I'll link below.
23:56
In regards to the case, the original owner of the house, the
24:00
sea captain, was named William Rainey, which is where the house
24:04
gets its name from. Now, I'm not sure if Mark still
24:08
lives there or not, or if it's just a historical site now.
24:12
Therefore, I'm not going to list the address.
24:15
And please, as always, respect everyone's privacy when it comes
24:19
to any case that I cover here. And really just in general.
24:23
I cannot stress that enough. So it turns out that Max Corvo,
24:27
Mark's father, bought the home in 1959 and lived there until
24:32
2009, presumably when he passed. And back in 1959, as part of the
24:38
renovations that were done back then, he put in a new septic
24:42
system. And during that process, while
24:45
they were digging the trench out to, you know, presumably replace
24:48
the septic system, they found 20 very old graves on the property.
24:53
And I very much think that this could have absolutely
24:56
contributed to the haunting. Interestingly, when I was doing
24:59
some of my digging just to see perhaps if I could find any
25:02
additional updates, I did see that Mark actually gave a
25:07
interview or at least a comment to the local press about another
25:10
home that was tied to a true crime case where there was a
25:14
murder that occurred. And I believe that they dug up
25:17
several bodies at a neighboring house to Mark's residence.
25:21
And basically he said, and I quote, there's a lot of negative
25:25
of energy and bad vibrations that came from the ownership of
25:28
the house. And this was back in 2016.
25:32
Now I tried to find updates on Mark, but again, he very well
25:35
may live in the same residence and might just keep a low
25:39
profile in his golden years. So therefore, again, please do
25:44
not bother him and be respectful of his privacy.
25:47
And I hope wherever he is, that he's doing well, and I hope I
25:51
covered his case with the utmost respect and that I did his story
25:55
justice. The website mentioned as well,
25:58
which I'll link below, has a good amount of photos from the
26:01
actual investigation as well as a bunch of additional
26:04
information. And I'm also going to put some
26:06
other websites that I cited during my study of this case.
26:10
I'll link all of those down in the description.
26:13
Now, I think the home was already haunted, but perhaps not
26:17
as haunted or infested with any kind of negative entities as
26:20
when Ashley brought in the voodoo practitioners.
26:23
I think it's very possible that they could have conjured
26:26
something and or allowed for these entities to enter the home
26:30
through what they had done. This story has been featured on
26:33
several platforms, including one of my all time favorites, a show
26:37
called A Haunting, which I cite fairly regularly.
26:40
I've definitely done a good amount of cases from that show,
26:43
but I just enjoy watching it. It's just one of my personal
26:47
favorites, truth be told. But I had an absolute blast
26:50
delving back into this episode alongside my other resources in
26:54
order to fully study and just kind of hash the whole story out
26:58
So with that being said, please let me know what your thoughts
27:01
are down in the comments below. If you enjoyed the video, please
27:04
leave it a like pipe it if you can.
27:07
Obviously the comment helps a ton and subscribe if you're new
27:10
here. All those things help me out
27:11
tremendously. Now I've noticed that on
27:14
YouTube, my Shopify store, my main merchandise site is
27:18
currently broken and I'm trying to get that fixed as far as how
27:21
it's linked to YouTube. But you can still purchase my
27:24
books or merchandise just directly from the site which is
27:28
Mystery Archives dot store. With that being said as well, if
27:32
you want to further support my work you can check out my
27:34
Patreon and at Tier 2 or higher which I believe I have a $5 a
27:38
month right now. You can get all my content ad
27:41
free as well as some behind the scenes stuff, so you might check
27:44
that out at patreon.com/mystery Archives.
27:48
I've definitely still had a lot of stuff going on in my personal
27:50
life, but I've really seen him a pretty big turn around, I think
27:54
just in my overall morale and mood.
27:57
And I just had a lot of fun returning to my roots.
28:00
And I've really been enjoying riding again lately.
28:03
And I hope you guys can kind of see the the difference in the
28:06
content that I'm producing. And I say this a ton, so I don't
28:10
want to sound like a broken record, but I will forever be
28:13
grateful for all the support that you guys give me.
28:16
So thank you so very much for allowing me to be able to tell
28:20
you stories for a living because I'm beyond honored as always.
28:24
Guys, this has been Cody here at Mystery Archives.
28:27
Make sure to stay safe out there and take care.
28:30
I'll see you next time.