February 9, 2002 Day: Saturday__

Time In: 8:00 PM Time Out: 12:00 AM

Rain/wind Temp.: H 61/ L 25

Humidity: 64%

Barometric: 30.05 & falling

Solar Rays: Active

Geomagnetic Field: quiet

Lunar Phase: 3 days after the Quarter Moon

History told by Stuart Hurt:

The house was built in 1894 for the Bishop of the Episcopal Church in Lexington, which is now Christ Church. The Bishop and his wife lived in the house for about 35 years. Since they did not have any children of their own, they took in an orphan from the church and hired a nanny to take care of the child. There were four other servants who lived with them year round. Some of the servant quarters were located in the basement while the high priority servant quarters were on the third floor. The fourth floor was taken out to make vaulted ceilings when they changed the building into apartments.

The basement was said to be a place where only the unholy went. The groundskeeper and one other servant lived in the basement. As you enter the basement there are two original blessing cups still hanging on the wall. Once you entered the first room you were suppose to bless yourself with the holy water from the cups. The basement still has the original brick floor. There is a well there that was located in the basement and goes down about 200 feet. It has been filled in and it now only about 3 feet deep. A legend associated with the house says the nanny is buried in that well.

In the 1960’s the building was converted into apartments when an architecture professor at UK bought the house and gave it to his students as their semester project. They only added four walls and managed to keep everything else the same. After x-rays were taken it showed that the doors are still there with their original trim work embedded in the sheetrock.

From 1982 until 1984 the house as abandoned and was rumored to have been a crack house at one time.

When Stuart bought the house in 1996 his original intent was to turn it back into its previous state. Now he says he he’ll have to wait another ten years to do that because of another house he has bought off Old Richmond Rd., which he wants to turn into a bed and breakfast. After he bought the house and they started the long hard task of cleaning up they were surprised at all they had found especially in the basement. They found all sorts of odds and ends and one was a claw foot bathtub that they just couldn’t get clean. They re-enameled the bathtub four times to remove the black stain that was in the bottom but it would just reappear until they put a crucifix in it.

They also found that every apartment had been wired with fiber optic cameras so the previous owner could secretly watch his tenants as they lived in their apartments. Stewart also told us about some very lewd conduct that had been going on in the basement before they arrested and convicted this perverted owner.

The sick owner, who lived in this place and watched his tenants take bathes and make love in their bedrooms, got away with this from 1985 until 1993. He was an individual that conducted lewd acts on his victims and then that sometimes led to murder. Some of his victims he disemboweled on top of a gynecologist table with meat hooks dangling from above.

In the one bedroom apartment on the second floor the lady who lives there said for about a two-week period, every night when she returned home the candles would be lit in her living room.

The gentleman who lives in the studio apartment, also on the second floor (which use to be the nursery) said wailing and crying in the middle of the night awakened him. He also claimed that his kitchen cabinets fly open at different times.

In another apartment the tenant would complain about the water being turned on by itself. Stewart had the plumbing checked twice and replaced the faucet but the water still continues to turn on by itself.

A lady on the third floor told about how her windows would come open when she wasn’t there and they would continue to do so even in the winter.

In Stuart’s attic apartment, there is always a big temperature change in the area leading to his bathroom. This area is always so much colder than any other part of the apartment.

At different times, people have heard voices that sounded as if they were coming from the basement when there was no one there.

When we arrived the first thing a lot of the team members did was to take a picture of the front of this creature of a house. We got orbs right away. Then we walked up to the driveway where we all introduced ourselves to the kind and gracious owner, Stuart Hurt. Stuart proceeded to give us a brief history of this building and he told us about the current hauntings that were taking place. We all made notes and headed for the back yard. There we gathered ourselves into a circle and said our St. Michael Prayer for protection. Once this was completed we packed our ghost-hunting vests with cameras, meters, mini recorders, extra batteries, film and headed for the basement.

The basement was huge and well lighted for us to continue our investigation. We set up our meters and took thermal readings. All the team members with digitals started getting orbs immediately and I got a couple of voices on my recorder.

We had one young member that became overwhelmed with the negativity that she was picking up and Chip Coffey a psychic/medium, had to help her outside to bring her back to her own personality. She felt something was taking over her and not being used to such exposure couldn’t really handle the feelings she was experiencing. Through Chip’s experience and with the help of Jason Lewis, another psychic medium, they were able to get the situation under control again without anyone getting injured.

The rooms down in the cellar still showed signs of the lewd and ungodly acts that were carried out there. The medical table and meat hooks were still hanging there. We got several orbs from different cameras in this room.

The EMF meter gave off good readings once we decided what was man made. The Trifield meter was constantly going off while down in the basement. This is the most sensitive of all meters and only registers paranormal activity.

Once we finished in the basement we continued on into the building. We went into the room where the kitchen cabinet doors were known to open and close on their own. We set them up with a camera to see if anything would happen but didn’t get a movement during that time. We did however get great readings from the Trifield Natural EM meter that kept going off and each time it would go off and I would take a picture I would get an orb in the same area of the meter.

We continued up into the attic apartment where we received great readings with the Multidetector II Profi meter in the living room, dining room work area and the bedroom to the left. Several team members got a lot of orbs in their digitals and 35 mm cameras during the readings.

While down in the front foyer of the house a group of the team met and started to notice that there was a definite presence around Chip. Roger Johnson’s Cell Sensor EMF meter was indicating a presence around Chip, as well as Susan Rummel’s Dr. Gauss meter was revealing the same readings. As Chip tried to talk to the spirit to get some answer someone flashed a camera and Chip jumped back and yelled, “Oh, my God, there is a little girl standing to the left of me. She has long blond hair and she is just standing there looking at us.”

Later, Paula Lewis, Susan Rummel and Roger Johnson went back down to the foyer and Paula dowsed. She contacted a spirit of a little girl (different from the one that Chip saw), between 12-15 years old, who lived and died in the house and not of natural causes. She was afraid of the group in the beginning. When Paula would ask questions the Cell Sensor EMF meter would go off beeping then Paula asked the child if she wanted her to stop and the child indicated yes through the movement of the rod. There were 3 EMF meters of two different kinds present during this session and they all went off in harmony at the same time to indicate a presence.

Patti began to dowse using 2 L-shaped dowsing rods and at first she got an older lady that said she lived and died in the house. The second entity came through and it was a man. She could see his outline in front of her while she was asking the yes and no questions. Patti stopped the dowsing after becoming extremely tired.

Bill Scott was able to ask questions of the spirits in the room and each time he would ask a question the Sensor Cell meters would increase in activity by the red light blinking as the sound reverberated.

Videos: N/A

This was a very interesting place to investigate with wonderful history and a sad mystery. I would love to come back with a smaller group and set up a monitoring system to just see what we might pick up down in the basement. I think we could do this and home base out of the attic apartment if Stuart would agree. This way we could just concentrate on one area at a time to see what, if any, concentration of activity could be recorded.

Ghost Chasers International, Inc. was given permission to return to the Bishop House for another investigation on June 8, 2002. In the picture above, from left to right, Jason Lewis, Psychic/Medium, Patti Starr, Certified Ghost Hunter, President of Ghost Chasers International, Inc., and Paula Lewis, Certified Ghost Hunter are exploring the basement where the murders were committed. After the formalities we started in the basement as before and immediately noticed a different atmosphere. Chip Coffey, Psychic/Medium asked Stuart what he had done and Stuart explained that he had work on prayers to send the spirits on and some cleansing. He also took a stand to let the negative spirits know that he would not be bullied. Chip congratulated him for a job well done.

Shortly after that Patti had Chip stand in a corner where she was feeling a strong presence and wanted to see if she would get anything in her digital. She started getting one orb positioned in the same place, shot after shot. It was just about knee high so she asked Chip to kneel that she felt it might be the little girl again. He knelt down and Patti got a great shot of the orb just in front of him.

Jason Lewis, Psychic/Medium was recording Chip with his Sony night shot and as Chip stood up Jason got some great shots of an orb flying around Chip and as Chip extended his hand the orb goes right to it and then it flies up into the camera and disappears. This is a fantastic clip, Jason Lewis.

Patti Starr, Certified Ghost Hunter

Author of “Ghost Hunting in Kentucky and Beyond”

President of Ghost Chasers International, Inc.