Episode Recap: The Innocent

Subject Names: Jenny Coffeen, Kyle Coffeen, Josh Coffeen, Makela Coffeen, Noah Coffeen, Kari Skinner; Tim Maille
Subject Location:  Chilton, Wisconsin
Paranormal Experience: 

Jenny and her fiancé Kyle Coffeen were taking the plunge and moving in together. It was an exciting time. Jenny's family liked Kyle, and he loved them. 

The first night, Jenny took a break from unpacking to have a smoke.  While outside, she thought she heard knocking, and followed it to the basement door.  Jenny went to check, and found nobody.  She slowly walked down the stairs, and felt an odd feeling come over her.  Someone was standing behind her.  Jenny ran up and called for Kyle, who wasn't able to find anything. 

The next day, early in the morning, Jenny went into the kitchen to fix breakfast.  The loaf of bread was sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor.  She thought it was strange, but put it back in the breadbox.  As she went to fix coffee, it was suddenly back in the middle of the floor again.  Suspecting her fiancé, she asked Kyle, but he knew nothing of it.  Jenny knew something wasn't right.

That afternoon, Josh was alone in the house.  He decided to hop in the shower.  As he bathed, he heard a voice that sounded like a young, four- to five-year-old child crying.  When he walked out to check, he saw nothing, but heard the voice again.  Josh thought it might have been his little brother, Noah, but Noah wasn't in the house.  Josh called his mother, and told her what happened.  Jenny reassured him that there was nobody in the house, but Josh was troubled.  He knew he didn't imagine it.  Josh wasn't alone.  Makela had begun hearing things as well. 

One day when she was alone in her room, Makela heard a soft knock on her door.  She went to check it out, but there was nothing there.  She went back into her room and closed the door.  A few seconds later, there was another, louder, more demanding knock.  Makela was freaked about opening that door again, but she did.  Again, there was nobody there.  She heard another knock coming from her room.  She walked back in, took a look at the window, and froze.  On the window was a small, dirty handprint.  When Jenny went to investigate, she brought Noah (the youngest in the house) to make sure it wasn't his hand.  Noah's hand was far too big.

One day, Jenny was home alone and decided to lay down on the couch.  She felt fingertips graze the side of her face.  Jenny heard someone walking around.  When she looked into a mirror, she saw a little boy standing in the house behind her.  Jenny gave chase, but couldn't find him. The little boy had to be the source of that handprint.  It was confirmation for Jenny.  Her house was haunted.

Jenny was growing worried for her kids.  She was also troubled by the sight of a red truck that had repeatedly parked across the street and just watched the house.  Josh went out to check on it, only to discover Kari Skinner, alone, sobbing in the front seat.  She said she'd lived in the house as a child, and wondered if she could come in.  Jenny allowed her in, and Kari told her that she was living in the house where her brother had died 45 years before.  Kari had no idea how her brother had died, and was desperate for an answer.  Jenny had no idea how to tell her that she'd been seeing a little boy, probably her brother, in the house. 

Kari and her brother Kris had been placed in foster homes along with her older brother and sister.  They bonded while in foster care, sleeping in the same bed and being really close.  Kari remembered that one day Kris wasn't with her.  She went to look for him, and found him on the floor.  His eyes were open and he wasn't moving.  He was dead, but Kari had no idea what had happened to him.  At one point, her foster mother blamed her for Kris's death.  Jenny finally broke down and told Kari that she thinks now that she'd seen Kari's little brother.  Jenny needed to know how Kris had died just as much as Kari by that point.

Kari went to the local archive and began investigating.  According to news reports, her brother had died from "strenuous child's play".  Kari freaked at that, thinking she'd hurt her brother accidentally.  The more she read, though, the more things didn't connect.  Her foster father claimed to have found Kris in a different room from where Kari had found him. 

That wasn't it for the Coffeen family, though. Josh had been in the kitchen fixing a meal when he saw the reflection of a tall, slender, old man in one of the kitchen appliances.  When Josh turned and the man was gone, he immediately ran outside.  Jenny and Kyle came home shortly after, and Josh told them what happened.  Kyle investigated, and found nothing.  Jenny asked Kyle to have a paranormal team come in.  Reluctantly, Kyle agreed.

The paranormal team set up their equipment, and Jenny walked them through the hotspots where the family had reported seeing things.  When Tim Maille walked into the basement, he said it felt "very heavy….dark."  They set up, and waited.  Eventually, Tim heard something that sounded like loud footsteps.  He saw the shape of a man block out one of the cameras.  When they ran back the videotape, however, what Tim had seen wasn't there. When they played back the audio (after fiddling with the speed a couple of times), the entire room heard "murder" very clearly spoken.  They also heard another voice.  Jenny called Kari so she could also hear it.  It was a little boy's voice saying, "My name is Kris."  Kari knew her brother had been murdered.

After the paranormal team left, the family was sleeping.  Josh was awakened by the feeling of something around his ankles moving him in the bed.  Jenny and Kyle were awakened by the sound of metal grinding.  Josh looked up and saw the tall, slender man.  He was petrified.  Kyle heard a child scream, and went down to the basement, where he found the washing machine had been picked up and turned.  There was nothing down there to move it.  This convinced Kyle that Jenny had been right all along.  Jenny decided she had to know what was going on in her home, before whoever this was hurt her children.

Kari visited, and she had asked to have her brother's case re-opened, because she believed he had been murdered. The first autopsy report hadn't answered any questions.  She got another autopsy report.  Tiny memories had also come back to Kari.  She remembered when she'd found her brother's body, her foster father had been calling in the report to the police.  She'd heard him lie about where he'd found the body.  The second autopsy report had shown that Kris hadn't died from strenuous child's play.  Kris had been abused by their foster father.  Kris had been murdered.  The foster father had died in 2010.  No charges had ever been brought against him.

Jenny held a "passing over" ceremony in the house, and the spirits of Kris and the foster father have never returned.