It was finally acquired by eccentric millionaire Augustus Torble, the lone heir of a restaurant mogul, who spent over a million dollars restoring the house to its former shape. In 1985, he moved into Butler House with his young bride, Maria.
In 1992, Maria was discovered by hunters, wandering naked in the woods six miles from Butler House. She was malnourished and incoherent, scars covering eighty percent of her body.
In the hospital, she told the police a tale of captivity and severe abuse by her husband, who kept her locked in Butler House’s torture chamber and committed unspeakable acts upon her for several years. She also told of being forced to participate in the torture and murder of eleven women, whose remains were found in one of the underground tunnels.
Torble was arrested, tried, and sentenced to life in prison. Shortly after the trial, Maria committed suicide. To this day, the women Torble killed remain unidentified. Torble refused to cooperate with authorities, and it is unknown where he found them or how he lured them to the house. He remains incarcerated at the Fetzer Correctional Institution in Charleston, SC.
Current Owner
The house remained vacant until 2002, when it was purchased by Unified Systems Association, which built an electrified perimeter fence around Butler House. Since then it has been off limits to ghost hunters, thrill seekers, and the curious. Those caught trespassing on private property are promptly arrested.
Hauntings
During its 176 year history, dozens of strange happenings and unexplainable phenomenon have been linked to Butler House. Some highlights include:
1848 – A string of arsons in Charleston, including six churches that burned to the ground, were attributed to a shadowy figure with an eye patch. Several witnesses swore it was the ghost of slave driver Blackjack Reedy.
1863 – Eight Confederate soldiers staying at Butler House reported a floating ball of light that roamed the lower tunnels at night. It had the ability to go through walls and locked doors, and if it touched a person, that person died of fright.
1908 – There were seven verified attacks and sexual assaults on women in the Charleston area, by an assailant whom they claimed to be Sturgis Butler… six years after his death.
1915 – Returning WWI veterans, many of whom were victims of chlorine, phosgene, and mustard chemical weapons, claim to have been tormented by a giggling spirit in a gas mask.
1918 – During the Spanish Flu epidemic, over a dozen patients reported being assaulted, molested, and in some cases raped, by an unknown entity. The spirit supposedly smelled like burned flesh, and paralyzed its victims so they couldn’t move or cry out while the attacks were taking place.
1958 – Since the deaths of J.J. and Myrtle Hossenport, descendants have suffered a streak of bad luck many attribute to supernatural phenomenon. Six car accidents, two fires, a drowning, a stroke, and a dog attack, have killed sixteen Hossenport family members. The last remaining Hossenport in the lineage, Mary Kate, was murdered by serial killer Charles Kork in 1993.
1965 – Reknowned psychic medium Mdme. Francesca Sillero gathered with a group of wealthy benefactors at Butler House to hold a séance on Halloween night. During the proceedings, she claimed to have channeled the spirit of Colton Butler. While Butler’s spirit was inside her, he allegedly forced her to pluck out both of her eyes and chew off her tongue.
1982 – A group of Charleston teenagers broke into Butler House to have a late-night party. Shortly after arriving, one of teen’s gums began to bleed for no explainable reason. By the time her friends got her to the hospital, every one of her teeth had fallen out. No medical explanation has ever been given.
1998 – A TV crew from the paranormal investigation show Ghost Smashers spent Halloween night in Butler House. Unconfirmed reports indicate a tragedy occurred. No one knows what happened, but the host, Richard Reiser, immediately retired from television without the program ever airing.
Tom clicked on the PHOTOS section of the website. The first picture looked a lot like the White House, but no columns and a darker color. The second was of three people, the Butler brothers and Annabelle.
Jebediah Butler was a bespectacled man with white hair and a Van Dyke beard. He looked a lot like a fatter Col. Sanders, minus the mirth. His wife was also plump, and either there was a spot on the photo or her left eye was severely crossed. Colton was the tallest, and rail thin. He leaned on his cane, hunched over as if his back was hurting him, and had one of those walrus mustaches with the ends curled up and waxed.
The next photo looked like a hole in the dirt filled with rocks, and Tom had to read the inscription to understand what he was seeing.
Over four thousand human bones found buried on the property.
Creeped out, he made the mistake of clicking on the next photo, which was a shirtless African American man who had so many scars on his body he no longer looked human. As Tom hurried to hit the ESC button, something in the image stopped him.
Something hanging on the man’s mangled shoulder.
A third arm.
It was small, withered, hanging over his chest like a wrinkled leather belt. But there were clearly five fingers on the end of it, and they were—
Holy shit. The fingers are holding a tin drinking cup .
Tom zoomed in, trying to spot if the photo had been altered, but it looked real enough.
What the hell was wrong with some people? Assuming even some of the facts on the website were true, what could make someone treat his fellow man like that?
Tom went to the next picture, partly out of morbid curiosity, partly because he wanted to see the Butlers get what was coming to them. He was rewarded by a photo that looked like two bloody, skinned deer carcasses.
Wrong again. The caption read The bodies of Jebediah and Annabelle Butler. They’d had every inch of skin on their body whipped off.
Thankfully, there were no pictures of the tortured Colton. But there was a portrait of Sturgis Butler, and Tom was shocked at how much he looked like Vlad the Impaler. Same dark, bulging eyes. Same pointy black beard. Tom found himself staring into those eyes, revulsion wiggling in his stomach.
Next came a picture of the house after the fire in ‘45. The structure remained intact, but there was telltale soot and fire damage surrounding the windows and front doors. Tom was going to move onto the next page, but something in the photo caught his eye.
He made the jpg the size of his monitor. In one of the blackened windows was a speck of white.
Tom zoomed in further.
The white speck looked like the ghostly face of a man screaming.
There was a sound and movement to Tom’s right, and he immediately glanced over his shoulder, adrenaline kicking in, and watched as his bedroom door—
—closed by itself.
As his fight-or-flight response kicked in, Tom remembered his window was open a crack. The draft sometimes blew the door open and closed; something that happened often enough that Tom actually looked it up and discovered it had to do with air pressure in the room.
Still, it was disconcerting after reading the history of Butler House. Tom’s mouth was dry. His heart was doing a fox trot. And he both felt, and saw, all the tiny hairs on the backs of his hands stick straight up.
He was afraid.
And the Feebies were right. Tom knew, more than most, what it was like to be afraid.
He didn’t like it. Not one bit.
Tom stared at the phone, wanting to call Joan. Hearing her voice would reassure him, calm him down.
Instead he visited YouTube and played an upbeat rock performance by Bob Walkenhorst.
He also turned on the bedroom light.