LOCATION & DESCRIPTION:

Built in the town of Murray, a suburb just South of Salt Lake City, in the late 1890's by a devout Mormon, Tobias Gibbs, the house was described as a small, but cozy fixer upper.

Because it was built on solid rock, there was no room to have a basement, which made the layout a bit unusual, and unfortunately may have caused the accidental death of the original owner, which is later explained in this story. While the house only had one floor, there was a little 15 x 9 ft. room up in the attic, right under the rafters of the house, that was built when more room was needed by the original owner's family. As there was no room for a staircase, one needed to climb up a steep ladder through a 5 ft x 3 ft. hole in the bathroom ceiling to reach this attic room. Next to this hot, little attic room, was the furnace and storage room, which had a rather odd entrance, located 39 inches up the wall in the attic room. One has to step on a chair, and / or hang onto a rope, which hangs down from the rafters, to reach the crawl-through hole, 30 inches square, to reach the entrance to this furnace / storage room.

MANIFESTATIONS:

When the C family moved into this old house, they discovered that they had a resident ghost hanging out in this little attic room, who also felt free to wander around the rest of the house, giving signs to the whole family that pointed to its presence, which made everyone a bit jumpy. The neighborhood history told the tale of how a man was found hanging from the attic rafter rope, through the hole in the ceiling of the bathroom, looking like a suicide.

2) Mrs. C heard noises in the attic. Occasionally, Mrs. C felt something unseen touch her, when she was by herself.

3) One night, while sleeping in the bedroom, located right under the attic, Mrs. C was awakened by a touch on her leg, and was startled to see two eyes starring at her in the dark.

4) Mrs. C, a compassionate person, wanted to try to help this entity. She asked the ghost to tell her a name she could call him. In response, she heard sounds coming from the furnace. One was an oboe sound, and then a tuba sound. She put the two together and came up with Toby. Since a James Gibbs had sold the house to the C's, and had told them that his father had built the house, she put 2 and 2 together, and came up with the idea that Tobias Gibbs was the name of the ghost.

5) A seance was held in the attic on July 10, 1967, led by a professional haunted house investigator, Douglas MacGregor, Mrs. Christianson, university students, and a talk show host, Tom Carlin. While MacGregor's equipment didn't register any temperature changes, or unusual electrical charges, something did happen that made a believer out of skeptic Tom Carlin. Douglas had given everyone in the attic a sealed, foiled package of 4x5 press camera Polaroid film, which Tom decided to sit on top of, to make sure no one tried any funny business with his film. During this seance, in the blazing-hot attic room, Carlin felt cold chills around his neck and ears, which traveled down his back. After the seance, which had no true manifestations, MacGregor checked all the film packages. All the film was blank, except Tom Carlin's, which gave the ominous warning, "DANGER!" Carlin thought it was a poison pen letter, totally making him a believer, vowing never to go up in this attic again! He felt that the ghost could stay up in the attic, and he would stay out, willing to wait to meet this entity someday for an interview, when both were existing in the afterlife, as to why Carlin received this message.

6) On May 7, 1968, Mrs. C started to practice exorcism rites, as all this ghost business conflicted with her religious beliefs. She had a vision when she shut her eyes. She saw a 20 year old man, with 2 white figures on either side of him, and he left with them. Temporarily, Toby wasn't around at all, until Oct. 1968.

7) On October 1968, Mrs. C awoke to see the same young man sitting beside her on the bed. She asked him why he was back. He spoke to her, saying, "My Work Here is not finished." She soon found out what he meant.

8) December 1, 1968 - Mrs. C used a folding chair up in the attic room to stand on, in order to get to the crawl space to the storage room, to check on her Christmas ornaments. When she stepped back down onto the chair, it started to fold up. A clear voice told her to "Go with the chair!". She wisely followed the advice, instead of jumping off, which was her first reaction. After recovering from her fall, she realized, that if she had jumped, she would've fallen through the entrance hole to the attic, and would've been found dead on the bathroom floor. She heard the same voice that had told her to go with the chair, saying, "That's how I died." Suddenly, Mrs. C suddenly realized that Toby's death was not a suicide at all, but an accident. Tobias had tied a rope to the rafters, with a noose on the end, to be used as a step to get to the furnace / storage room. When he came back down out of this storage room, the object he stepped down on fell over, causing him to fall, just like her folding chair. Consequently, his head landed into the noose he had earlier used to get up in the furnace room. When his body fell through the attic entrance hole, he hung himself accidentally.

The reason for the haunting became obvious. Everyone had thought he had committed suicide, and he hadn't. Plus, he had inadvertently had built a dangerous addition onto his house, and didn't want anyone else to die like he unfortunately did. He felt he needed to warn others, and save Mrs. C from the same fate. Carlin's received message, "DANGER", was one of only warning, not hostile intent.

Still Haunted?

Unknown.

Now that all has been revealed, hopefully Toby has found peace at last. You can bet the C's found a way to make the attic problem safer, so hopefully no more fatal accidents would ever happen.