Ahead of Halloween, tourists visit a home with a grisly past and tunnels said to be haunted | News, Sports, Work

FALL RIVER, Mass. (AP) — “Lizzie Borden took an ax and struck her mother 40 times. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41.”

This rhyme has been passed down from generation to generation to describe the horror that befell the Borden family in 1892. While not entirely accurate, the rhyme does reflect the continued fascination some people have with the double homicide in Fall River, Massachusetts, as they line up to tour or even stay overnight at the crime scene now known as the Lizzie Borden home.

October has long been considered the spookiest month, and with Halloween just around the corner, many tourists find it the perfect time to visit a haunted house or descend into a dark basement with a jack-o’-lantern. Although there is no scientific evidence that haunted homes can or do exist, surveys show that one-third or more of Americans believe in such phenomena. For many others, the tours are nothing more than a bit of goosebump-inducing fun.

And there are many savvy business owners who know how to capitalize on the fear, mystery, and wonder that has surrounded death since the beginning of mankind.

“I believe Lizzie did it.” tour guide Richard Sheridan tells a group of fascinated tourists as he shows them a mannequin on the bedroom floor, spattered with fake blood, representing Borden’s murdered stepmother.

In fact, Borden was tried and acquitted of murdering her father, a wealthy investor, and her stepmother, despite overwhelming evidence against her. This left the murders officially unsolved, and the result only increased people’s fascination with the case.

Sheridan said he believes the killings left behind a gruesomeness that remains to this day.

“I firmly believe that they left a mark on the house. I guess that’s what you’d call stalking.” he said.

On the other side of the US in Portland, Oregon, tourists descend a steep staircase into a cave-like basement in Old Town’s Chinatown. Once there was a pizzeria and a brewery on the site of the hotel. Tourists are promised a lesson in Portland’s dark history and hear tales of Nina, who is supposedly an underground ghost dweller.

Portland’s history is certainly troubling: men were kidnapped to work on ships or tricked into working as sailors by unscrupulous operators who got them drunk or into debt. The practice became known as “Shanghai”, named after the Chinese port city where some of the ships were headed. Women were also sold for prostitution, and criminals smuggled opium and alcohol.

But did any of those actions really take place underground? “Shanghai Tunnels” which are central to the tour are less clear.

One local history buff, Joe Streckert, said no one has found any artifacts to support the theory. According to him, some connected basements were used to store goods.

“We have no evidence that underground structures were part of the entire infrastructure of Shanghai,” said Streckert, who has written a book about Portland’s history and once led tours of Old Town.

But this does not stop the admiration of tourists.

“It gave me goosebumps,” said tourist Kate Nelson, who added that it’s not the temperature. “You go down stairs, you go through tunnels, you go through places where there were other energies.”

Hiker Drew Smith said he thought he saw something strange in the hole and his camera kept breaking.

“I tried to pick up something random in places where there was nothing.” he said.

And the ghost? In a muffled voice in the dark basement, surrounded by tourists with lanterns, guide Natasha Kimmiotti said that Nina died there after falling down the elevator shaft.

“Whatever you think ghosts or spirits might be, it’s not my business to tell you.” Kimmiotti said, adding with a sly smile: “There was an experience here, even as a healthy skeptic, I can’t tangibly explain it.”

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