Newport Subdivision just outside Houston
In 1980 Ben and Jean Williams began to experience weird feelings, like being watched in their new home. An atmosphere became prevalent, a general gloomy darkness was experienced in some parts of the home and cold spots were noticed. The house retained a clammy chill year round. The garage door and household appliances seemed to operate on their own. Freak rainstorms left behind large numbers of huge worms and there were invasions of giant ants. Footsteps began to haunt the halls and the older and younger members of the family changed significantly in terms of their personalities. Jean couldn't get any new plants to live on the property, no matter what she did. Toilets began to flush by themselves and electrical problems that could not be explained occurred again and again. Poisonous snakes began to find their way onto the property and into the couple�s home.
Jean and Carli were awakend from an afternoon nap by phantom footsteps in the hall, and Ben returned home from work one evening to find a threatening apparition hovering over his sleeping wife. Six members of the Williams' extended family were stricken with deadly cancers, with three of them dying within a year. One night, Ben encountered two black forms whose icy, enveloping touch sent him to the hospital with something akin to an asthma attack. Their daughter became seriously ill. Their neighbors reported similar incidents and problems with their own homes, but none of them could offer any explanation. When they moved in they had noticed that a tree in the back yard had strange markings carved into it, two slash marks. The terrain in the subdivision seemed oddly dotted with what looked like sinkholes.
The subdivision was built over the graves of an abandoned cemetery that had been called "Black Hope." Buried in pauper and often unmarked graves were the remains of at least 60 people most of whom had been former slaves.
A long time resident of the area told them he had marked their tree as a way to identify where his two sisters were buried. Jean started digging around the strangely marked tree. Her daughter Tina, age 30, tried to help but collapsed and died of a massive heart attack. Jean and Ben devastated by their loss, and convinced the property was at least partially to blame, fled the subdivision.
Sam and Judith Haney had just began to excavate a site for a pool at
15802 Poppet's Court, when an old man knocked on their door and told them that human remains were buried in their backyard. He pointed out a spot where he claimed two graves had been, and gave the Haneys the names of some black families living nearby who could confirm his story. Digging with a backhoe where the old man had indicated, the contractor unearthed two bodies, a man and a woman, interred in crude wooden coffins. Jasper Norton, who had worked as a gravedigger, told the Haneys that their home and surrounding houses were built on top of an old cemetery called Black Hope, and that the deceased were mostly former slaves. The last burial had been in 1939, and as many as 60 people had been interred there in pauper's graves. Norton identified the two people buried in the Haney's backyard as Betty and Charlie Thomas, former slaves who had died during the thirties. Sam and Judith made the extraordinary decision to rebury their remains in their own backyard.
Shortly after, disembodied voices disturbed their sleep, and one night Judith was awakened when an unplugged clock in the bedroom began shooting sparks and giving off an eerie glow. One evening, when Sam was working a night shift, Judith heard their sliding glass door open and assumed Sam had forgotten something. "What're you doing?" she heard a voice ask. When she checked, there was nobody there and the door was locked. The next morning, Judith couldn't find her red shoes. When she finally located them, they were outside, sitting side by side on top of Betty Thomas' grave. The Haneys realized the date was Betty Thomas' birthday. The Haneys came to feel that something was trying to drive them from their home. A dozen neighbors whose houses were built on top of the abandoned cemetery reported lights, televisions, and water faucets turning on and off for no apparent reason. Many claimed to hear unearthly sounds and some saw supernatural apparitions. There seemed to be an increasing maliciousness to the bizarre events.
Featured on an episode of Unexplained
Broadcast Date: July 17, 2002