[sinister industrial metal music plays]
[music intensifies]
[blade scrapes]
[cat meows]
[meows]
[meowing softly]
[music fades]
[tense music building]
[cat meows in distress]
[industrial metal music continues]
-[music stops] -[meows]
-[blade slices] -[eerie musical sting]
-[brooding music plays] -[blood dripping]
[industrial metal music continues faintly]
[blood dripping]
[mysterious music plays]
My name is Alicia,
and my family and I were tormented by a creature in our home.
[crickets chirping]
[sinister musical beat]
[whooshes]
[mysterious music plays]
[Alicia] I grew up in Garden Grove, California.
It's quiet, neighbors know each other.
It's a nice-- It was a nice little city.
Growing up was actually really hard.
My mom was newly divorced, and it was myself and…
Andrew, my brother.
We lived in a mobile home for quite some time.
-[rock music playing on stereo] -[clangs]
I was just so envious,
-and a little jealous of my peers. -[dog barking in distance]
-[ominous music plays] -Nobody lived in a mobile home,
and they would have, like, pool parties and barbecues.
[insects chirping]
I was a little bit ashamed.
[dreamlike sounds of people playing in pool]
I was always bullied.
I was a little overweight, and I was short,
and I wasn't the prettiest.
So living at the mobile home, that didn't help.
My social life was just very bad.
But then things changed.
My mom is a hairstylist,
and she had an opportunity to work in a salon.
She realized, "This is the perfect opportunity
to find a home for us and the teenage kids at this point."
I had more clients, and more money was coming in.
And fortunately, I found a "For Rent" sign
and, uh, inquired about that house,
and wow!
It was just a dream.
[eerie music plays]
[Lisa] Alicia, come on.
[eerie musical sting]
[Alicia] I remember seeing these people.
They seemed a little bit off in a sense of they didn't want us there.
They seemed pretty angry and upset.
But I kind of brushed that aside, thinking I'm so excited to be here.
[birds singing]
[chuckling softly]
Andrew, come…
-That's gonna be your room. -Yeah.
[Lisa] Let's go.
[giggles]
[clanks softly]
Kids!
[sighs contentedly]
[cat yowls]
[whooshes, clatters]
[dog barking in distance]
[ominous music plays]
[gasps softly]
[gasps]
[Andrew] Mom?
It's fine.
It's fine. Just-- Just go.
-[chuckles softly] -[eerie music plays]
[music fades]
[Lisa] That cross had been blessed,
so it meant a lot, and it broke in a million pieces and crumbled.
[Alicia] We were shocked, but we thought maybe
a gust of wind may have knocked it down, or maybe something--
It was unlevel or something like that.
Yeah, there was just no explanation. You know, just kind of strange.
And then a few days after we moved in, I went out into the backyard.
-[mysterious music plays] -[birds chirping]
[metal clatters]
[crow cawing]
[bird squawks in distance]
[eerie music plays]
-[cat hisses] -[musical sting]
[eerie music plays]
[birds squawking]
[music fades]
[Alicia] I found very strange items in the backyard.
And for some reason,
I had an eerie feeling there's something-- Something is not right here.
Again, I kind of brushed that aside.
It was going to be my first day of senior year.
I remember getting ready on the first day of school, all excited.
-[hip-hop music playing through speakers] -[aquarium bubbling]
[cat yowls]
[cat hisses]
[eerie whooshing]
[cat hisses]
[cat growls]
[suspenseful music builds]
[hip-hop music continues]
[washing machine end of cycle buzzes]
[cat growls]
[exhales sharply]
-[eerie music plays] -[cat hisses]
-[otherworldly music plays] -[cat yowls]
[gasping]
-[whimpering] -[cat hisses]
[music building]
No!
[continues whimpering]
-[cat hissing] -[whimpering]
[music climaxes, stops]
[gasps]
-[cat growling] -[whooshes]
-[bones crack] -[screams]
[high-pitched tone]
Mom?
[dramatic musical sting]
-[low growling] -[Lisa shuddering]
[sinister music plays]
-[tense music builds] -[Lisa screaming]
[snarling]
Mom!
[Lisa screams]
-[bubbling sound] -Mom!
[yowls]
[gasps, shudders]
-[cat yowls] -[whispers] Oh, my God.
[high-pitched tone]
[hisses monstrously]
[gasps, shudders]
[Alicia shudders]
-[musical sting] -[Lisa whimpers]
[hisses]
[sputtering]
[low, guttural growl]
-[gasps] -[cat yowls]
-[hisses] -[whimpers]
-[demonic snarl]
-[slashing sound] -[Lisa screaming]
[cat growling]
[otherworldly sounds]
[sounds stop]
[Alicia shuddering]
[whimpers] Mom?
[whimpering, gasps]
[shuddering]
[sinister music plays]
Mom! Mom!
[Lisa groans weakly]
[Alicia] Oh, my…
Mom! Mom!
[music fades]
It was as if you jumped off of a five-story building
and just shattered both of your ankles.
It was quite unexplainable.
She was actually screaming, "Somebody picked me up and pushed me."
"Somebody pushed me. Somebody lifted me and pushed me."
I thought, that is not a cat.
It had different features.
It had fangs, and you could see its ribs.
The eyes were
-just looking right into my own eyes. -[eerie music plays]
I've never seen an animal like-- like that at all.
So I immediately went to the hospital with my mom.
And the first thing that you said was, "Go home and get rid of that creature."
[dramatic musical sting]
-[blade rasps] -[Alicia shuddering]
[cat hisses]
[crickets chirping]
-[cat hisses] -[whimpers]
[low growl]
-[musical sting] -[Alicia gasps]
[shuddering]
[floor creaking]
[continues shuddering]
-[musical sting] -[gasps]
[discordant piano note clangs]
[eerie string music builds]
[music stops]
[Alicia] The lights turn back on, and the creature is gone.
[eerie music plays]
My mom came home from the hospital.
Um, we put you in the bed, and that's where you were going to heal.
I just remember coming home and seeing Mom with two casts on her legs,
and I was thinking, like, "Wow, did this really happen?"
Like, I've never seen anyone with two broken legs
and two full casts around their legs.
I thought it was just unreal.
In that moment when my mom was injured,
um, we were completely vulnerable inside the house.
[crickets chirping]
[sighs]
[slams shut]
[door locks]
-[knob rattles] -[Andrew] Mom?
[pounding on door] Mom!
Andrew?
[Andrew pounding on door] Mom!
-[continues pounding] Mom! -[object shatters]
[cat yowls]
[object shatters]
-[thud] -[cat yowls]
[loud clattering]
[cat yowling]
[Alicia gasps softly]
[clattering continues]
[cat yowls softly]
-[electricity buzzing] -[man talking indistinctly on radio]
-[clattering continues] -[cat meows]
[man's voice distorts, stops]
[eerie music builds]
[knob rattling]
[Andrew] Mom!
[growls]
[hisses]
-[hisses monstrously] -[screams]
-[glass shatters] -[gasps] Alicia?
[dramatic music plays]
[groaning weakly, gasping]
-[straining, whimpering] -[Andrew] Mom?
Mom!
Mom?
-[grunting] -[Lisa whimpering, straining]
[Andrew] Mom!
[sobbing]
-[grunting] -[Lisa straining]
[Alicia] There…
[wheezes, sobbing] There is a demon…
in-- in my room.
-[echoing shriek] -[ominous music plays]
You say, "There's a demon in my room."
[dramatic beat]
My mom took my temperature, and it was 108.
And then I noticed my hands and my arms
started forming these very large red welts,
as if there were burn marks all over my skin.
They drove me to the emergency room.
Doctors were coming in wearing hazmat suits and oxygen masks,
and they were treating me as if, um, I was quarantined.
[water sloshing]
And they decided to put me in an ice bath.
[Alicia shivering and sobbing]
[monitors beeping steadily]
[tearing sound]
[tense music builds]
[screams]
[whimpers loudly]
My hair was falling out in very, very large chunks.
The rash on my arms grew all the way down my back and my legs and my feet.
My left eye optic nerve completely shrunk because of the temperature,
and I was blind in my left eye for a month.
[Lisa] It was just so scary.
Like you were dying right in front of my eyes.
It reminded me of a Biblical plague,
just getting skinnier and skinnier and thinner and paler.
And… there was really no explanation
until they finally found out what it was that you had.
[dramatic beat]
They call a woman from Center of Disease Control to fly in from Chicago.
She did a few tests.
She asked me…
"Did you go to Africa at any point recently?"
"Because you have typhoid fever."
The doctor was very surprised and stated that it's impossible,
because there was zero cases of typhoid fever in the US
since the 1920s.
The rarest form of typhoid fever.
Never seen in our area, ever.
[Alicia] My mom decided, at this point, it was time to…
really, really look into hiring a professional person
who practices
getting rid of demonic entities in the home.
I spoke to a friend who told me about JC.
I'm a shamanic practitioner.
I'm a teacher for the Foundation for Shamanic Studies in San Diego.
I'm very sensitive, uh, to energy.
I was born with the ability
to connect with divine helpers.
I went to the home,
and I began to see the negative energy that was there.
[brooding music plays]
[cat yowls softly]
[otherworldly yowling]
[yowl fades]
[object scraping floor]
[dramatic musical sting]
[JC chanting softly]
[cat yowls softly]
[hisses]
[eerie musical sting]
[chanting softly]
-[musical sting] -[whooshing]
[jarring musical stings]
[continues chanting softly]
[cat yowls]
[low growl]
[low, rasping chitter]
[snarls]
[snarls loudly]
[rasping snarl]
-[dramatic music plays] -[gasping]
[monitors beeping]
[creature growls]
[roars]
[loud whooshing]
[Alicia whimpers]
[whooshing continues]
[monitor beeps]
-[heart beating] -[sage sizzling]
[heartbeat stops]
-[eerie music plays] -[creature snarls]
[deafening roar]
[blows]
[roaring stops]
-[gasps] -[monitor beeping steadily]
[gasping breaths]
[grunts]
Hmm.
It's just kind of a blur now.
This thing was putting up a fight. It didn't want to go.
This was a very intense situation,
and it took a lot of energy to be able to remove this entity from the house.
[whispers] Wow.
[Alicia] After JC removed the negative entity from the home,
I started feeling better.
It was too good to be true. I was just…
I was…
It felt everything was gone.
The doctors said,
"Okay, well, your fever is down enough for you to go home."
-[hopeful music plays] -[birds singing]
-[indistinct chatter] -The house felt completely different.
Whoo!
For the first time, I was able to have a few parties
like I wanted to in the very beginning, and enjoy my senior year.
The nightmare was over.
[gasps]
-[slashing sound] -[sinister music plays]
[cat meows, yowls]
[music continues]