Malvern Manor

Recently I made a voyage with my old pal from Paranormal State Chad Calek, to investigate the very haunted Malvern Manor in Iowa. Last time we were on an investigation together was the Jersey Devil episode on season 4 of Paranormal State. Oh the fine days of lying out slabs of raw meat in the Pine Barrens!

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It’s been awhile since I wrote about an investigation. I’m always seen diligently jotting down notes in my notebooks on cases and that’s where they’ve been staying. In PRS we were required to write detailed field reports after each investigation. It was really useful when helping out clients to document your findings, keep record of interviews, thoughts and observations. I figured that I might as well be giving you guys a glimpse into the investigations that I do for fun.

Historical Background

-Opened as The Cottage Hotel in the 1880’s. It was the town’s first hotel and became the spot for railroaders passing through Malvern.

– Nishna Cottage nursing home from the 50’s to late 70’s-shut down by state due to halls not being wide enough for such a facility and some other things that I can’t remember.

-Operated as a residential care home for those with disabilities & mental illness until 2005. It seemed like a different mix of people living there. Patients with Schizophrenia, Down Syndrome, murders, addicts etc. Rumor has it that the patients were mistreated.

Owner, Josh Heard gave us a tour of the place. I really liked how he kept the manor pretty much as is. There are a lot of objects still there from when it was a personal care home like pill trays, tiny pill info cards, mattresses and patients belongings. Heard even pointed out a patient’s toenail clippings in one of the drawers. I guess it is sometimes helpful to have trigger objects during investigations haha.

It doesn’t seem like the entire history is clear when it comes to the mistreatment of patients. There are 2 hallways on the 2nd floor with visible blood stains spread all across the walls and on the carpet, some that clearly looks like some kind of struggle was taking place. It makes you wonder what happened there. We have bits and pieces but there’s still missing information. Of course that’s the case with any place with such a history. Perhaps more investigations can help uncover unknown details.

The hot spots, activity and known ghosts/spirits that visitors have communicated with…

• Nurses Hallway Station-Shadows have been seen. After Paranormal Lockdown premiered a former nurse got in touch with Heard and informed him that there was a 6ft tall patient at the end of the hallway in room 2. He would chase the nurses all the way to the kitchen. Very interesting since visitors have reported dark shadows coming at them.

• Inez-12 yr old girl-found with a jump rope around her neck and a folding chair beneath her. This incident actually didn’t take place in the manor but in a house close by. Recordings of her name have been heard in the manor, so for some reason she is said to haunt the place. What’s her connection to the manor?

• Gracie-a schizophrenic patient with multiple personality disorders who has been very active in the building. Nurses would hear what sounded like a males voice coming from her room talking about the devil. Could Gracie be haunting the place with her many personalities?

• A patient named Hank resided in one of the rooms on the 2^nd floor. The story is that he hated women.  Women have been prone to having more experiences in that room. He would also throw rocks out the window at kids. His clothes are still in the top drawer.

• Rose was a woman whose husband committed her. She would look in the mirror and pull out her hair because she didn’t think she was pretty. This room is at the opposite end of the Nurse’s Hallway.

• Rooms 17 & 18 on 2nd floor-One patient was possibly sexually abused and the 2 male patients were in love with other.

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We spent most of the time in the nurse’s station hallway where the shadows have been seen.  During night 2 we set up a light grid down both hallways. It’s easy to get distracted while staring at these in the dark. We heard sounds here and there coming from multiple rooms in this hallway. One of our attendees Kevin, saw a shadow coming from the room across from Rose’s room.

Night 3: As I was sitting in the hallway I start to hear what sounds like footsteps right beside me and the sound of the carpet. Myself and Chad immediately turned our heads as if to expect to see one of the attendees standing there, and there was no one. A fellow investigator, Lee Anderson had a Zoom recorder nearby and you can hear the footsteps from his recording.

Ganzfeld Experiment

This was something we tried on an episode of Paranormal State. Utilized by parapsychologists to test telepathy, this experiment was designed to take you to an altered state of consciousness. There’s a few different ways to do it but you blindfold the receiver, or shine a red light on them while they wear headphones through which white noise is playing. The point of this experiment is to literally to mess up the senses so the subconscious is used to communicate. Over the course of time you should start seeing images of things. You can choose to base your investigation on the experiences described and it can also be used to show that your mind is capable of creating activity.

Chad would shine light in their faces, move around them, ask questions, while I transcribed the session. We did a total of 2 sessions. In the first session the receiver picked up the image of a woman’s lips. One receiver from the 2nd session saw images of a very sad woman with porcelain skin in her 20’s, while another saw a face as if it was printed on a dollar bill. This stood out to me because we were at the end of the hallway where Rose’s room was. Were they seeing Rose? Overall it was a neat experiment to see what happens to your mind in an altered state.

Thanks to all that joined us! I highly suggest putting Malvern Manor on your list of places to explore next. In locations like this it always seems like the spirits are sticking around because that’s the only family and home they ever knew in life? The mix of people that resided there was unique and hopefully history can continue to be unveiled during future investigations.