Every Town - Very Real Hauntings Of Black Hope Cemetery - Crosby, TX

Episode Date: July 22, 2022

Do you know what’s beneath the ground that you house or apartment was built on? Could be that’s it just some dirt and rocks or perhaps there’s something underneath it still buried. Back in the early 1980s, residents of the newly-developed Newport Subdivision located just outside of Houston, Texas started experiencing something otherworldly.--------------------------------------------💀 Exclusive Video Content & Access: https://www.patreon.com/scarymysteries 🥇 Watch This Episode on Youtube!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-t6GllnSYI&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=ScaryMysteries--------------------------------------------🎧 Scary Mysteries PodcastApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scary-mysteries/id1273612861Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3ZooEZMoZ421WdsOVJhVkTAll Others: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1235579 Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you love true crime, grab your favorite mug and pour yourself a dose of creepy true crime every single morning with a morning cup of murder. This short daily show is the perfect podcast to incorporate into your morning routine because in less than 15 minutes, you'll hear about a true crime that took place on a day's date in history. Each day's dark history lesson will kickstart your morning with intriguing tales of murder, abduction, serial killers, cults, and everything in between.

With over 20 million downloads, Morning Cup of Murder has something for every true crime lover. One listener describes the show as a small package with a powerful punch of crime. Another writes that the show is an absolute delight in the morning. Support yourself a piping hot cup of murder every single morning with Morning Cup of Murder. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Every town has a dark side. Do you guys know what's beneath the ground that your house or apartment was built on? Could be there's just some dirt and rocks, or perhaps in years past, something else stood there that was torn down, or maybe there's actually something underneath it still buried.

Back in the early 1980s, residents of the newly developed Newport subdivision, located just outside of Houston, Texas, started experiencing something otherworldly. They were at the receiving end of various unexplained occurrences and even deaths, the cause of which were allegedly due to the desecration of graves that were part of the Black Hope Cemetery. That burial ground had recently been transformed into the Newport subdivision, which promised a life and paradise for its residents. However, that promise was soon shattered and overpowered by the hauntings of the dead. I'm Andrew Fitzgerald and thanks for tuning in to another episode of Everytown. Please leave a review if you enjoy our content and remember,

you can always watch these videos on our YouTube channel called Scary Mysteries. Now, in order to understand the hauntings and proper context, let's first tackle the origin of the Newport subdivision down in Crosby, Texas. The land now known as the Newport subdivision was originally owned by the Mercer-McKinney family, family, who were wealthy landowners, farmers, and former owners of five slaves. In the late 1860s, when slavery was abolished, the McKinney family gave a portion of their land to their former slaves, which they used to build a school, a church, and a cemetery for an entire African-American community. Thus, the Black Hope Cemetery was created, which was a simple burial ground without complex design.

This was where as many 60 former slaves have been interred in Popper's graves with the last burial ceremony being done in 1939. Sadly, the cemetery wasn't recognized by Harris County until a fire demolished the land and it was ultimately cleared of any remaining markers. Eventually, the land was sold to a land developer, the Purcell Corporation, that began the development of the Newport subdivision, which included the area where the 19th century Black Cope Cemetery once stood.

Back in the 1980s, Houston, Texas was swamped with a major influx of new citizens in the region, which gave rise to the demand for the construction of housing subdivisions and outlying areas to accommodate the people. Of course, purchasing a home is truly the most important investment a family can make. It signals a fresh start and the fulfillment of owning's one unique home. And that's the promise of the Newport subdivision, which was situated just outside of Houston and Crosby, Texas. It was a charming, posh development with beautiful new homes and well-manicured lawns,

and it seemed like a picture-perfect image of the American dream. It was the place to live in Houston during the housing boom of the early 80s. but no one knew that beneath this slice of paradise were supernatural forces ready to reclaim their territory when their peace was disturbed. So, after the first residents began moving in, they were besieged by strange happenings that led them to trauma, misfortune,

and worst of all, multiple deaths. The first residents at the Newport subdivision that collected a string of terrifying experiences were couples, Sam and Judith Haney and Ben and Gene Williams, who were actually neighbors. The Haney couple purchased their dream house in 1982, and they couldn't have been happier to have achieved that.

Sam wanted to build a swimming pool in his backyard, and just when the construction crews were ready to begin digging, Mr. Haney received an unexpected guest that he didn't know. The elderly man introduced himself as Jasper Norton, who warned Sam that there were graves under the plot of land and that they should not go through with their plans. In order to substantiate his statement, Mr. Norton led Sam around the backyard and pointed to the ground where the supposed graves were. The only thing Sam could say was, I really didn't know how to react to that. I didn't know if he was just joking. I couldn't understand why anyone would want to joke about something like that.

Jasper further explained that as a teenager, he himself was the one who buried the bodies of former slaves there. And it was only at that point that Sam learned about the history of the Black Hope Cemetery, which laid down the foundation of the first-class subdivision he and Judith resided in. Jasper added that the housing subdivision had simply been built over the former cemetery, without moving the bodies, and the housing developers merely covering it all up and forgetting about it. Sam was skeptical and the kind who didn't believe in creepy old tales, but still, in the back of his mind, he wanted to find out himself for sure if Jasper's claims were true. Sam told his wife about the

creepy story that Mr. Norton told, so the couple decided to dig in the spot specified by a strange guest. Using a backhoe, Sam started digging and soon enough hit something. Sam revealed, At that point, we stopped with the backhoe, and we got down into the hole and continued digging by hand. There were pine boards. When we lifted up the first board, we could see an indentation of a skeletal form. It didn't take long to figure out that it was actually human remains. An official The little exhumation of the remains was done by the sheriff and the county coroner after that. Although most of the bones had been reduced to powder form, they still unearthed 25 brittle bone fragments that disintegrated when touched. Alongside the first coffin was the second one where they

discovered a pair of wedding rings on the frail index finger of the exposed skeleton. Judith, mortified by the discovery, quipped. They handed me the rings, and it was sickening to think, that I had desecrated somebody's grave. The authorities were informed about this discovery, and after some digging into local records, they learned that the two corpses belonged to freed slaves, Betty and Charles Thomas, who had died in the 1930s. Sadly, their graves, like the others, were eventually forgotten,

realizing that they had unwittingly desecrated the Thomas' graves, Sam and Judith re-buried Betty and Charlie in their yard, and prayed that their spirits would rest in peace. But the disturbed souls were not appeased. And a rash of supernatural phenomena soon started to bring terrifying troubles into paradise. The Haney's then became the targets of the spirits taunting and wrath. One night, the clock in their bedroom started to spark and put out a sort of blue glow. But when Judah checked the clock, it was unplugged, but by who?

On another occasion, Sam went to work at a night shift, leaving his wife alone in the house. In an eerie incident then occurred in which Judith heard the sliding glass door open, and someone who she thought was Sam asked, What are you doing? But everything in the house was quiet as she was by her lonesome, and the sliding doors were locked. Mrs. Haney thought, well, you know, you must be losing your mind. This really must be getting to you.

When she woke up the following morning, another seemingly unbelievable thing happened, and this one really sent chills down her spine. Judith was looking for a pair of red shoes, but couldn't find them even in all her closets where she normally kept her belongings. The couple searched inside the house but didn't find the shoes, so they then looked for the red shoes outside. Sam said, We had walked just a short distance from where the grave sites were, and I could see something on the grave,

and the shoes were both side by side like someone had just picked them up and carried them over and laid them down on the grave site. Then, strangely enough, the Haney's would learn that day had actually been the birthday of Betty Thomas, and Sam got the feeling, like it was Charlie Thomas giving his wife a birthday gift. Judith likewise was realizing what was going on saying, I began to come to the realization, but this was not all in my mind, and that this had to have some relationship to Betty and Charles Graves being disturbed. Their spirits were saying, This isn't right.

And these scary happenings were not exclusive to the Haney's, but even other residents of the Newport subdivision also reported encountering paranormal activities. Most affected were the Haney's neighbors, Ben and Gene Williams, and their granddaughter, Carly. They thought that they had found the perfect home in an ideal place, but what happened was contrary to their expectations. Their out-of-this-world experiences started when Gene began to notice that all the flowers in their yard, despite being well taken care of, died for no understandable reason, and would keep dying no matter what they did. The Williams also said that near their flower bed, coffin-shaped sinkholes appeared, and they would then fill them in,

but the sinkholes would reappear a few days later. The Williams also felt their ideal home was being invaded by a menacing, dreadful, and uneasy presence. Random shadows slid along the walls, followed by whispered words and a putrid smell. Footsteps would be heard while no one was around. Fosses. would turn on and off, and toilets would flush all by themselves.

During a scorching hot summer, Carly encountered bone-chilling pockets of ice-cold air. She said, it would be very, very chilly, and you'd have this feeling or foreboding or just, you know, like something wasn't right or someone was watching you. Carly sensed something, wanted to be heard, and let her know that it was there. Gene had fathomed why these things were happening. I absolutely believe that all of these things happened to us because we were on the graveyard and that we were simply going to be tormented until we left there. Ben and Gene discussed what they should do next.

They thought of leaving, but they didn't have money to buy a new house, and Ben told his wife, we've always been fighters. We're going to stay right here and fight it and try to beat it. As if to challenge Ben's courage, the frightening occurrences then grew in intensity and maliciousness, which Mr. Williams himself experienced. One night, he came home, around 10 after midnight, from work, and he walked straight to the kitchen, open the refrigerator door, and that's when he saw these ghostly figures. They went straight backwards into the den and started heading right down the hall to Gene. Ben saw the figures, standing about a foot and a half from the end of the bed.

The only thing Ben really thought of was, They ain't messing with my wife. Fearing for his wife's safety, he jumped onto the bed, and as he dove through it, Ben felt a sticky cold sensation in his body. The worst wasn't over yet for the Williams as well as for the Haney's, because what would happen next led to a string of fatalities and financials, collapse. In the next few months, six of the close relatives of Ben and Gene Williams were diagnosed with cancer, and three of them didn't survive the health crisis. After learning the fact

that their subdivision was situated above a cemetery, the couple became convinced that an oak tree in their backyard, which had arrow and line carvings, was a grave marker. Down the street at the Haney's residence, Judith had been so affected by the disturbances in her and Sam's life, She said, I was crying all the time. I was frightened. I was scared of doing my daily routine in my own home. So a legal recourse was Sam and Judith's next step by suing the developer for failure to disclose that their house was built over a cemetery. A jury eventually awarded them $142,400 for mental anguish. But in a devastating reversal, the judge ruled that the developer was not responsible. for their torments. The verdict was thrown out, and Sam and Judith were ordered to pay $50,000 in court costs. So they ended up having to file for bankruptcy now, and in the end, the Haney couple

lost the case, lost money, and lost their house. The Williams couple also explored legal action against the developer for the same reason the Haney sued Persol Corporation. But the developer wanted Ben and Gene to prove that there were bodies buried on the property. And it was then that Jean made a decision she would forever regret, as she boldly declared, That was the last straw. You want a body? I'll show you a body. So I thought to myself, I can dig about two feet a day, and I knew I would reach a body. But shortly after she started digging, Jean fell ill so her adult daughter Tina volunteered to finish the job. 30 minutes into digging, Tina complained of feeling dizzy, so she went inside the house,

laid down on the couch while telling her parents that something felt wrong. Callie remembered the last thing Tina said to Jean, Mommy, take care of my baby, take care of my baby. As they were waiting for paramedics, Jean was trying to keep Tina awake and responsive, but her heart attack was massive and she died just two days after. Jean blamed herself for her 36-year-old daughter's death and said, I realized that I had desecrated another grave and now I'm paying. I told Ben, we have to get out of here.

It doesn't matter what we lose, what we had. And I knew that if we didn't, then I was not going to make it, because my fight was gone. I could fight no more. Ben and Gene decided to escape to Montana and later moved back to Texas, in a different neighborhood, of course. They wrote a book about their paranormal experiences titled The Black Hope Horror, which was later made into the movie The Grave Secrets. Since then, reports about paranormal activities on the Newport subdivision houses have been contradicting. While the current owners of Sam and Judith Haney's previous house have reported nothing strange, a present occupant of the former home of Ben and Gene Williams said otherwise.

She claimed of hearing a sound like a cougar, outside her window when there was nothing there. Other residents also experienced weird electrical disturbances, slamming up doors on a still day, the sensation of being touched on the shoulder, seeing a brown man crossing the room, slippers moving on their own, and seeing apparitions lurking inside of their homes. Despite this, many families have reported normalcy in their lives, and they never had such creepy experiences. No one has been able to shed light on why it happened to the Haney's and the Williams. Was it because they actually dug up the graves? Did it spawn the ghostly activities that some residents have also experienced? Were there really spirits that got in

rage for the desecration of their graves? Or were they perhaps making it all up? The answers are still hanging in the air, and so the hauntings of Black Hope Cemetery remain a mystery to this day. So that's it for this week's episode of Everytown. If you want even more podcasts from us, go check out our Scary Mysteries podcast. Or better yet, just go to our YouTube channel called Scary Mysteries, where you can check out all of our videos there. Tune in next week for another episode filled with Scary Strange and Mysterious Stories. Thank you guys so much for two.

tuning in, and perhaps your town will be next.