Winchester Mystery House: Ghosts, Legends, and Hoaxes

If you’ve heard of the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California, you’ve surely heard the rumors about its famous owner, Sarah Winchester. Like the claims she was an eccentric hermit who never left her 24,000-square-foot mansion. Or that she demanded construction crews work on her home night and day, year after year, because she believed when the work stopped, she would die. Or maybe you’ve heard that she feared hoards of vengeful spirits, killed by Winchester rifles, were out to get her. It’s a compelling legend – built on little to no evidence. Is the Winchester legend a hoax, and if so, who was behind it? Help us reach 10k followers on Instagram! @⁠theconspiracypod⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:07Speaker 00

  It's March 29th, 1895. A sprawling mansion sits just outside of San Jose, California. Ever since its current owner moved in nearly a decade ago, the house has attracted attention and curiosity. It's become something of a landmark, one that's hard to miss. What started out as a modest farmhouse has expanded both outward and upward over the years. Construction never seems to end. There are always new rooms being built, new turrets being added. The homeowner, well, she's somewhat famous. Sarah Pardee Winchester is the heir to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company,

• 0:49Speaker 00

  maker of one of the most popular rifles in existence, which has made Sarah enormously wealthy. But like her house, Sarah is a mystery. She's not a people person or a dutiful socialite. She mainly keeps to herself. And she certainly hasn't offered any explanation for why she's always building onto her home. That day in 1895, the local daily newspaper publishes an article posing one theory. According to the anonymous reporter, "The real reason Sarah Winchester keeps building is because she believes that if she stops, she will die." The author of this article chalks it up to superstition.

• 1:33Speaker 00

  "Sarah is simply an eccentric recluse with too much money to burn. Her main goal is to keep her carpenters busy, hammering away." The report suggests that it almost doesn't matter what they're doing so long as they are working. As for Sarah, well, she never publicly refutes these claims, so the legends about her keep growing and transforming. The following decade, another article in the San Francisco Examiner suggests that Sarah believes she will die if she ever leaves her house. Now eventually, the story positions her as a woman driven by guilt,

• 2:12Speaker 00

  superstition, and a fear of vengeful spirits who want Sarah to suffer, as they have. After Sarah dies in her home in 1922, her mansion becomes a tourist attraction, complete with its own ghosts. The Winchester Mystery House is reportedly haunted. And that may well be. But as for the stories about Sarah, historians say they aren't all true, and that just like her home, Sarah's legend was built little by little, over time, by countless architects, people who had their own motivations for lying about her.

• 2:55Speaker 00

  Anger, ambition, and greed. Welcome to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify podcast. I'm Carter Roy. New episodes come out every Wednesday. It's October, and that means for the next month, we'll be investigating the truth behind four of the eeriest conspiracies out there. We would love to hear from you. So if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts, or check us out on Instagram at the conspiracy pod. This episode includes discussions of death. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by Petivity.

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• 5:32Speaker 00

  I don't know about you, but I love a good roadside attraction. Now, the only thing better than a long adventurous road trip is a much-needed stop to stretch your legs on said road trip, especially if it means visiting a one-of-a-kind tourist trap like Carhenge, Nebraska's tribute to Stonehenge, made out of, well, cars. And then there's the world's largest ball of twine, of course. Well, that's in Kansas. And who could forget the Cabazan dinosaurs, made famous in Pee-wee's Big Adventure. But if you're looking for the most haunted roadside oddity, well, this is Halloween season after all, then look no further than the Winchester Mystery House,

• 6:17Speaker 00

  located in San Jose, California. The former home of Sarah Pardee Winchester is hard to miss, thanks to its sheer size. It is huge. We're talking 24,000 square feet. That's enough space for 10,000 windows, 17 chimneys, 52 skylights, fireplaces, and stairways out the wazoo. There are 160 unique rooms, including six kitchens, and 13 bathrooms with a grand total of 2,000 doors. And it's all surrounded by acres of perfectly manicured grounds. The Victorian mansion is known for being expansive,

• 7:01Speaker 00

  but that's not its only claim to fame. For one thing, the house is said to be haunted. There's the famous wheelbarrow ghost whose work on the grand ballroom's fireplace is never ending. Visitors also report hearing disembodied footsteps and other eerie sounds. And if you catch a shadowy figure out of the corner of your eye, it's best just to keep moving along. But what really makes the Winchester Mystery House so alluring is the legend behind why it got to be so big in the first place. In 1881, Sarah Winchester is thousands of miles away from San Jose and the home that will one day bear her name.

• 7:44Speaker 00

  She's still living in her hometown of New Haven, Connecticut, where she spent practically her entire life up until that point. But that life, as she knows it, is gone. For the past year, she's endured unimaginable loss. First, her mother died, followed by her father-in-law. Just a few months later, her beloved husband of nearly 20 years, William, succumbed to tuberculosis. Sarah is in her early 40s when she becomes a widow and simultaneously, one of the richest women in the world. Because William Winchester was an owner and heir to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. And William's father, Oliver,

• 8:28Speaker 00

  held the patent for one of the first ever repeating rifles to be mass-produced. It was so popular, it came to be known as "The Gun That Won the West."

• 8:40Speaker 00

  When both of them pass away, Sarah reportedly inherits about $20 million and nearly half of the company. Now, as legend has it, that windfall is nothing but a burden. Here's the story that's often told about what happens next. Sometime after losing William, Sarah goes to see a psychic in Boston named Adam Coons during a séance. He makes a horrifying revelation. The reason Sarah has suffered so much loss is that she's being haunted, cursed by the ghosts of all the victims of the Winchester rifle, the gun that only won the West at

• 9:25Speaker 00

  the cost of countless lives. Sarah's inheritance is tainted, but the psychic allegedly says there is a way that Sarah can outrun those vengeful spirits and save her own life. To do so, she must use her vast wealth and follow his explicit instructions. Build a house you never finish. As long as the work continues, the ghosts will never find you. Stop building and you'll die. That's when Sarah moves to San Jose and buys her property, which comes with an eight-bedroom farmhouse.

• 10:06Speaker 00

  In the popular version of the tale, construction begins immediately and continues day in and day out for decades. Among the many stories about the mystery house, there are even claims that Sarah takes her building plans from beyond the veil. At the center of the mansion, you'll find a chamber with multiple doors in and out. Some claim that only Sarah is allowed to enter. There, beginning at midnight, every night, she holds séances. To this day, visitors report that being in the room makes them feel ill and they can feel hands pressing in on them.

• 10:50Speaker 00

  So, who was Sarah trying to contact? Well, there are those who believe that she wanted to stay one step ahead of the spirits who haunted her every waking moment, and I guess Sarah thought, well, what better way to do that than to seek help from friendlier ghosts? These spirit guides would supposedly come to Sarah during her séances and tell her what to build the next day. Now, those who buy into the legend suggest that explains the strange details and illogical designs throughout the house. Sarah intentionally built a maze inside her own home so that anything that might want to harm her could never find her.

• 11:34Speaker 00

  Well, that's supposedly why there is, for example, a second-story door that opens out ah onto nothing. Step through and you'll find nothing below you but a sheer drop to the ground level. There's also a staircase that makes a sudden turn only to disappear into a wall. Chimneys seem like they're half-finished. Windows look into other rooms. There are even trap doors. As the story goes, Sarah doesn't stop there. To make sure the ghosts can't find her when she's at her most vulnerable, she reportedly sleeps in a different room each night, and not always in a comfortable bed.

• 12:16Speaker 00

  She's not above curling up in a bathtub or on a cold kitchen floor. It's all an effort to keep herself safe. Over the years, Sarah spends an estimated $5 million working on her house. Now, adjusted for inflation, that's nearly 100 million bucks, and that kind of money gets you a lot more than just some walkie-stairways. Sarah also commissions opulent home decor, most notably Tiffany glass. One piece depicts a spider web inlaid with 13 colorful circles meant to look like precious stones. And that's a nod to yet another legend about Sarah Winchester.

• 12:59Speaker 00

  She's supposedly fascinated by the number 13. This claim is said to be evidenced by windows with 13 panes of glass, drains with 13 openings, a chandelier gets a 13th arm added to Sarah's satisfaction. The list goes on. If all of these legends are to be believed, construction on the house does not cease until September 5, 1922, the same day that Sarah Winchester passes away, reportedly while lying in the 13th bedroom she had built. Now, it is tempting to buy into the legend. There's no doubt that Sarah created a unique home.

• 13:44Speaker 00

  She lived inside a labyrinth. Parts of the Winchester mystery house seem to only make sense if you take the legend at face value, and the version of the story with psychics, insidious spirits, and séances every night, it kind of adds up. But, modern historians have proposed other explanations for why Sarah did what she did. They suggest the woman depicted in the legend is a far cry from the real Sarah Winchester. But the stories did get one thing right about her. She may have been running from ghosts, after all.

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• 14:49Speaker 04

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• 14:55Speaker 05

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• 15:22Speaker 00

  Sarah Winchester, heir to the Winchester rifle fortune, uses her vast wealth to turn her home into a 24,000-square-foot marvel, or a suspicious eyesore, depending on which of her neighbors you talk to. For decades, construction barely ever seems to stop, with the house expanding outward and upward. Between 1890 and 1900, the work on Sarah's house moves faster than ever. In 1896, she adds a third floor, then a fourth. Eventually, the mansion tops out at seven stories tall. Most of that height comes from a tower that makes the whole building look like a castle

• 16:05Speaker 00

  and which Sarah has torn down and rebuilt 16 times before she's satisfied. It's around this spike in construction that newspapers begin to print rumors about Sarah. Reporters speculate, with no proof whatsoever, that her motivations are superstitious or maybe even supernatural. They say she believes the constant work to her house is the only way to keep vengeful ghosts off her back. But if you ask modern historians, there are explanations for just about every detail of the Winchester mystery house, no matter how much they may appear to defy logic. First, we have to understand where Sarah Winchester is coming from.

• 16:50Speaker 00

  Back in her hometown of New Haven, Connecticut, Sarah's born into a long line of joiners. Uh, what do joiners do? Well, they're skilled woodworkers. A joiner might design and build anything from window frames to staircases to doors, as well as built-in furniture like bookshelves. They often get confused with carpenters. Sarah grows up watching her father perfect his craft. He creates beautiful spindles and moldings in the popular Victorian style, which explains why Sarah is fascinated by skilled craftsmen and knows her way around a design team. Sarah's 23 years old when she marries William Winchester.

• 17:34Speaker 00

  The newlyweds move in with William's parents, and as far as records can tell us, they're happy for the next few years until tragedy befalls them. In 1866, Sarah gives birth to a little girl, Annie, who dies when she's just a month old. After that, Sarah, who's already someone who keeps to herself, barely leaves the house for a year. To drag Sarah out of her grief, her in-laws give her a task. They want her to help them build a new palatial family home. William, who loves architecture, is to help with designs, while Sarah will lend her eye for craftsmanship.

• 18:17Speaker 00

  According to author and historian Mary Jo Ignoffo, the process allows Sarah to absorb life lessons in interior design, construction management, real estate investment, and financial strategy. Throughout, Sarah gains valuable insight into what it means to construct a home to someone's exact specifications. It's another piece to the puzzle of the Winchester mystery house. But if Sarah does find a moment of peace from her grief during this project, it doesn't last long. As we mentioned earlier, Sarah loses her mother, then her father-in-law, then her husband.

• 19:01Speaker 00

  After William's death, Sarah is pretty unwell. It's unclear if she's just struggling mentally, or if she's fighting a physical illness. At any rate, her doctor suggests that a change of climate and a hobby that will keep her occupied and active might improve her health. For a while, Sarah uses her inheritance to travel Europe, but she returns to New Haven when another family member gets sick. Her sister Mary dies of cancer in 1884. After enduring so much loss in a handful of years, Sarah is ready for a new beginning. Because if she is haunted by ghosts,

• 19:45Speaker 00

  they're all in New Haven. So, less than a year after her sister dies, she heads west to California. And she doesn't make the move alone. She convinces her three remaining sisters and their families to come along too. When they arrive, Sarah purchases her 45-acre property in the Santa Clara Valley with the eight-room farmhouse, the one that will become the Winchester Mystery House. Although, Sarah has her own name for it: Yanada Villa, her house on flat land, or house on the plain. The exact timeline for how the house grows is a bit unclear, but some suggest the renovations begin almost immediately. At first, Sarah has help.

• 20:29Speaker 00

  She hires two architects at the outset, one who completes an initial remodel and another who designs a stable. But then, Sarah decides to become her own architect. We don't know if she's unhappy with their work or if she simply decides she's found her hobby, the thing that brings her happiness, that keeps her mind from becoming idle, and perhaps even makes her feel closer to her late husband. So, Sarah becomes her own architect. And just six months in, the eight-bedroom house has swelled to 26 rooms. She continues to consult experts, but now, Sarah's the one drawing up her own plans for extensions to the house.

• 21:14Speaker 00

  She isn't totally fumbling around in the dark. She reads manuals and subscribes to journals like Architectural Record. Even if she wants to study architecture at school, that wouldn't really be something expected of her in this time period. An architect named Louis Bethune is considered the first woman to practice as a professional in this field in the US, and she's only been in business for a few years at this point. Of course, Sarah doesn't always get it right, but for someone with that much money, mistakes don't seem to be much of an issue. If things don't pan out, eh, sure, she gets frustrated, but then she just has the mistake torn down and she starts over again. She also doesn't seem to have

• 21:59Speaker 00

  much of a strategy or grand plan for the house. She works piecemeal, building in fits and starts as the weather and her energy levels allow, which results in a jumble of mismatched rooms with disjointed styles. Eventually, some will look at this end result as the frenzied mess of a mad woman, an eccentric who listens to ghosts. In reality, she's an enthusiastic but untrained architect with access to millions of dollars. There are plenty of details that suggest Sarah's simply doing as she pleases. Case in point, the stunning stained-glass windows throughout the building. They're a popular feature

• 22:43Speaker 00

  in upper and middle-class homes at the time, and Sarah's are on another level. As I mentioned, some of her pieces are from the Tiffany Studios of New York, which sounds like Sarah's someone with time to spare and money to burn. As the years pass, Sarah buys up neighboring properties until she owns nearly 160 acres. Now, obviously, as the estate grows, San Jose locals watch on in wonder, curious about what's going on in the sprawling mansion. And wonder is really all they can do, because Sarah just isn't much of a people person. She's always been shy, and she doesn't attend social gatherings,

• 23:28Speaker 00

  like her neighbors might expect a wealthy woman to do. Not only that, but the locals might understandably feel some resentment towards Sarah. In the early years of her time in San Jose, most people in town are feeling the effects of the latest economic panic and depression. Meanwhile, Sarah seems to have unlimited resources. The have-nots can't help but notice that the haves are bleeding money like there's no tomorrow. So they invent this idea of Sarah, the wealthy eccentric hermit. Some of these rumors are rooted in truth. Sarah is certainly not outgoing, there's no debate over that. Other than hired workers,

• 24:11Speaker 00

  she never really invites outsiders over to see the house. Instead, well, she literally builds up more walls around her. She even plants thick greenery along the borders of Yanada Villa, perhaps as a way to shield it from view. Maybe she thinks that if her house isn't quite so visible, people won't want to talk about it. Or maybe she just doesn't care what people have to say about her. She's happy for people to stay away from her, so if people think she's awed or a snob, it probably works in her favor. And other than the money she spends on her house, her pet project, Sarah can be pretty stingy. When her sister and brother-in-law fall on hard times, she refuses to pay their debts.

• 24:56Speaker 00

  Even when the debtors sue Sarah for payment, she could pay them very easily, but she doesn't. It's just one more reason everyone in town comes to believe she's a miserly old crank. On the other hand, she's not the lonely hermit she's sometimes portrayed as. In 1888, her favorite niece, affectionately called Daisy, moves in. She lives with her Aunt Sarah for 15 years. Yeah, Sarah has a roommate for nearly half the time she owns her home in San Jose. Granted, Daisy and Sarah could each have their own wings of the house and still have plenty of privacy, but it certainly doesn't seem like Sarah is stuck inside this labyrinth, all alone,

• 25:39Speaker 00

  unable to escape her ghosts. In fact, she does leave the house for long stretches at a time. Sarah has real estate investments around California, which she visits for up to a month here and there. Those trips take her away from the so-called séance room she supposedly visits every night. According to Colin Dickey's book Ghostland, the room isn't even really a designated séance room at all. During Sarah's lifetime, it's mostly used as a bedroom for her gardener. If you need more proof that Sarah did not continuously build day and night, year after year, to escape angry spirits, I'll just look to her personal letters.

• 26:24Speaker 00

  They often mention the projects she's working on. Makes sense, they also mention when she takes long breaks from all the construction. In 1898, she writes about one portion of the house that's been giving her trouble. "It's a stairwell that's become dangerously dark after an addition left it without much natural light." She mentions several mishaps where people miss one of the steps and stumble, so she decides to knock out a wall and put in a skylight. "But there are delays in carrying out her plan." She says, quote, "I had to have plastering done, and as that could not well be done in the heat which succeeded, I had to wait for cooler weather. Then I became rather worn and tired out and dismissed all the workmen

• 27:07Speaker 00

  to take such rest as I might through the winter." She doesn't call the building crew back until the following spring, when the weather is too hot or too cold, or whenever Sarah just gets tired of dealing with everything, the work ceases for months at a time, which doesn't square with the legend. Now, of course, you might still be wondering about the really peculiar architectural choices. The stairway that disappears into a wall, the doorway that opens up into a two-story drop. Was Sarah really that bad at planning? It turns out, there is a reason for those anomalies too. In April of 1906,

• 27:51Speaker 00

  an earthquake strikes Northern California with a magnitude of 7.9. It's massive. It ruptures nearly 300 miles of the San Andreas Fault. While the epicenter is in San Francisco, the shaking can be felt as far south as Los Angeles. An estimated 3,000 people are killed. A quarter of a million more lose their homes. And down in San Jose, Sarah's house suffers serious damage. Before the earthquake, the house had been pristine. Now, it stands in relative ruins. The seven-story tower crumbles, leaving a huge hole in the mansion's third floor. Likewise, most of the chimneys collapse, either tumbling to the ground

• 28:34Speaker 00

  or plunging straight down into the building. And much of the third and fourth floors are beyond repair. In short, the place is a mess. But unlike her neighbors, Sarah decides not to rebuild. She has the debris cleared away. She employs contractors to make the home safe to live in, but she doesn't try to restore it to what it had been. As historian Mary Jo Ignoffo points out, "That is how Sarah winds up with doors that open into nothingness." Chimneys are sealed off below ceiling level, making them look like they've been abandoned halfway through construction. Staircases look like they disappear

• 29:18Speaker 00

  because they used to lead to upper floors that no longer exist. After that, even Sarah herself thinks that the house looks like it was built by someone with questionable decision-making capabilities, or maybe even declining mental health. And the locals seem to agree with her. When it becomes clear that Sarah's not going to fully restore her home, newspaper articles make pointed declarations that anyone who doesn't rebuild after the earthquake must be insane.

• 29:52Speaker 00

  Then, the ghost stories really began. It's around 1908, and Sarah, now in her late 60s, is thinking about selling her sprawling San Jose property. Any move the valley's wealthiest woman makes is catnip for the press. And don't forget, even without the made-up rumors, Sarah is a minor celebrity with a famous last name. So the papers write about the pending sale. For years, they've been painting Sarah as superstitious, afraid to stop building onto her home or she'll die. But it's these articles in 1908 that first mention angry spirits. Someone at the San Francisco Examiner

• 30:36Speaker 00

  comes up with a theory that Sarah's decision to move might risk the wrath of ghosts. After that, the question of whose spirits these are and why they're angry is up for speculation. So that's what people do. They speculate. And eventually, it's decided that all of it, the years-long expansion of the home, the imagined séances, is the product of guilt. The spirits are those of people killed by the Winchester rifle. And as someone who'd profited from the gun, the burden of guilt is laid squarely at Sarah's feet. From about 1910 onward,

• 31:21Speaker 00

  Sarah retreats even further from public life. She also buys a secondary home not too far from San Jose. For the rest of her days, she travels back and forth between these two main properties. Officially, this new home is closer to niece Daisy. Perhaps it also offers an escape from her home projects, her solitude, or her reputation. Granted, it's hard to know how the years of rumors and outright lies affect Sarah. It could just be that she's getting old. Rheumatoid arthritis severely affects the use of her arms and hands. She can barely lift her feet, so she has the staircases in her mansion

• 32:04Speaker 00

  replaced with low-rise steps to allow her to move about more easily. But the stories written about Sarah never cease. Starting around 1911, newspapers speculate about her health and predict her death on a semi-regular basis. Well, she lives to be 83 years old. When she passes away on September 5, 1922, we know that construction on her home stops for good. According to her wishes, she's buried in New Haven in the family plot alongside her husband and daughter. And despite the media attention Sarah and her house received during her lifetime, it's very possible that all would have been forgotten over the past century.

• 32:47Speaker 00

  And the reason we still know about the Winchester mystery house today could be thanks to one enterprising couple who saw in Sarah's home 10,000 windows of opportunity.

• 33:05Speaker 02

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• 33:21Speaker 03

  Right, it's perfect for camping trips.

• 33:24Speaker 04

  Dance for it, feeble mortal.

• 33:26Speaker 03

  Sorry, is he talking to me or?

• 33:28Speaker 04

  Dance, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. From our tradition to yours, Stonefire.

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  Together we Naan.

• 33:37Speaker 05

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• 34:04Speaker 00

  After Sarah Winchester's death in 1922, her estate is divided, and the resulting money goes to family members and employees who receive small inheritances. Her will also sets aside money for a few of Sarah's favorite charitable causes. But as for her home in San Jose, the place she called Yanada Villa, the focus of so much speculation over the years, it turns out to be nearly worthless. The land is valued at $125,000. And before long, the 68 acres her home sits on are broken up and sold off. Yet, the mansion itself is appraised at no value.

• 34:47Speaker 00

  It's considered to be in a bad state of repair. Besides that, it was built to one woman's very odd specifications. Even Sarah's heirs don't really want it. The handful of nieces and nephews who survive her can't afford the taxes or repairs on the property. So the house goes up for auction. A developer scoops it up, but then he has to spend months trying to offload the real estate. The following year, in 1923, one man shows up in San Jose with a vision. John H. Brown hails from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Back home, he'd once been entranced by the way that old railroad boxcars linked up and moved together. I guess he thought it looked like fun.

• 35:32Speaker 00

  So he took that design and turned it into his idea for an early 20th-century roller coaster. He called it the Backity Back, which sounds totally safe and not like a trip to the chiropractor at all. John was hired to install his ride at Canada's Crystal Beach Resort on Lake Erie. According to the roller coaster database, it, well, it maxed out at only 10 miles per hour. But interestingly, it could go both forward and backward. Backity back. The year after John installs the Backity Back, the ride causes a fatality. A 17-year-old girl is thrown from her car, despite how slow the roller coaster moves.

• 36:15Speaker 00

  And while it doesn't seem as though John is blamed for the death, he does pack up his family shortly after and move them out to California. When John sees Sarah Winchester's estate, he dreams up an amusement park he wants to build on the grounds, including a new roller coaster. Hopefully, he's learned some hard lessons. John doesn't have the money to buy the Winchester house outright, but the property developer is desperate. He makes a deal. John and his wife Mamie will rent to own. John is particularly drawn to Sarah's house because of its ill repute. Back at the Crystal Beach Resort,

• 36:57Speaker 00

  one of the most popular attractions had been a mystery house. For John, the legend surrounding his new home is a feature, not a bug. He believes it will draw crowds. Now, John never does get enough funding to get the amusement park off the ground, so his plans for the roller coaster are scrapped. Instead, he bets big on the house as the main attraction. By May of 1923, just eight months after Sarah's death, he opens the doors of the Winchester house to the media. He hasn't even had the time or money to decorate the place or fix it up. But it's no matter. The tour is an immediate hit.

• 37:41Speaker 00

  One journalist for the San Jose Mercury Herald describes the home in detail. And you can imagine why readers who've only seen the house from the outside and heard bizarre stories all these years would eat it right up. Especially when the reporter likens the home to the House of Usher and suggests giving ghost tours there around Halloween. The following year, around Halloween of 1924, John welcomes a special guest, Harry Houdini. You may know Houdini as one of the greatest magicians and escape artists in history. He's also a massive celebrity in his time. One reason he stays in the zeitgeist for so long

• 38:24Speaker 00

  is his uncanny ability to reinvent himself, to stay in the spotlight. In these later years of his career, Houdini has pivoted once again. He's now well-known as a vocal critic of so-called mediums and psychics. Anybody who recalls our episode on the death of Houdini may remember that he was extremely suspicious of spiritualism. It's a religious movement, and one of its central beliefs lies in the ability to communicate with the dead. Usually, this is done through séances, like the one Sarah was allegedly holding. Houdini hated spiritualist mediums. He saw them as grifters

• 39:08Speaker 00

  who were out to make a buck off of their grieving clients. So he made it his mission to debunk charlatans of all kinds. He was so passionate that some say his crusade might have gotten him killed. So you might think Houdini would have one look around Sarah's home and hear John's story about her and say, "Okay, so where's the proof? Why should I believe that this woman got her designs by communicating with the dead?" And yet, when Houdini visits the Winchester house, he buys John Brown's story, hook, line, and sinker. He even adds to the mythos. He goes and tells the Oregon Daily Journal

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  that he saw robes in different colors, which Sarah supposedly wore during her séances, a different outfit for each spirit she summoned.

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  Looking back, it's almost a letdown that Houdini bought the whole story because the claims about Sarah Winchester being a spiritualist are actually pretty thin. If Sarah had been a spiritualist, it wouldn't be unusual for her time. In the late 19th century, there was a thriving community of them among San Jose's wealthy residents. Only, there's no evidence to back up that Sarah was ever a part of that community. There's nothing to suggest that she ever attended any meetings or séances, or made any financial contributions to the movement. And as Mary Jo Ignoffo points out in her book, Captive of the Labyrinth, we're talking

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  about a very social religion. Séances are a social event. They often employ a medium, someone who claims to be gifted at communicating with the dead. The idea that a person would hold a séance alone, quote, "misrepresents the nature of the ritual and misunderstands Sarah Winchester." Then there's the story that before she moved to California, Sarah went to see a famous Boston medium named Adam Coons. He's the one who apparently told her that her family was haunted by the ghosts of everyone killed by a Winchester rifle. And maybe it's not so hard to believe Sarah went to a psychic once at the height of her

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  grief. But it turns out, there's no record of a medium named Adam Coons ever existing. Well, not only that, there's no evidence that Sarah ever visited a psychic or medium anywhere. Houdini's review of the Winchester house acts like an endorsement. He can see through any trick, and he seems to buy the legend. But Mary Jo Ignoffo suggests someone else is more responsible for keeping the Sarah Winchester legend alive. John Brown and his wife Mamie, the first official tour guide.

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  It seems as though they cobbled together years of old rumors while peppering in their own details. They are, after all, running a tourist attraction. And the wilder the story, the more likely people are to visit, which some might call a hoax. But it works. Before long, visitors flock to the house eager to experience the creepy madness of Sarah Winchester for themselves. And they get just that. And then some. The strange architecture, the unrepaired damage from the earthquake. It all seems to confirm what everyone had always said about the reclusive millionaire.

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  And it's enhanced with made up explanations for some of those structural oddities. If you'll recall, the number 13 is prevalent throughout the house. Well, based on Mary Jo's research, at least some of those examples may have been added after Sarah's death. Take the chandelier in the ballroom, for instance. It does have 13 arms. According to the story, Sarah had that 13th arm added to suit her preference for the number. But Mary Jo questions that story. The chandelier is beautifully made. It was imported from Germany. If Sarah Winchester had wanted a chandelier with 13 arms, she would have designed or

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  custom ordered it that way in the first place, rather than retrofitting it. The historian also points out that no mention of Sarah's love for the number 13 ever appeared in articles during her lifetime. It wasn't until 1929, seven years after her death, and six years into John Brown's venture, that this part of the Winchester lore surfaced. Even Sarah's trusted carpenter of many years would attest, the number 13 was added onto the house only after Sarah was gone. As for those who knew Sarah, some of them are upset by the stories about her. One friend even threatens to expose John Brown as a fraud.

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  Another gives a tell-all interview in an attempt to set the record straight. But for the most part, her loved ones are content in knowing the truth, that she was magnanimous in her own way. Sarah's money did come from a weapon, a weapon that was used to kill. But Sarah actually gave away a lot of her wealth, and she often did it anonymously. When she died, folks were surprised to learn that her estate was only worth about three or four million, far less than what she inherited. Some say she squandered the money on her own, but she also established a hospital in New Haven.

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  The facility was at the cutting edge of tuberculosis research, and it was named after her late husband, William Wirt Winchester, who died from the disease. And now, there's one more theory about why Sarah kept building onto her house so much. And it also has to do with her secretive philanthropy. When Sarah bought her house in 1896, the country was still reeling from the latest economic downturn. The panic of 1893 led to a depression with long-lasting effects. By 1895, unemployment had skyrocketed to 14%.

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  Some historians have theorized, that's why Sarah liked to hire so many local workers. That's why the work continued for so long, sometimes without any clear end game. Perhaps it was Sarah's antisocial way of spreading her wealth. The Winchester Mystery House is still operational today. Much of Sarah's home and her maybe not so cohesive vision for it has been lovingly preserved. As far as landmarks go, it's one of a kind, and there's a lot to love about the tour, as long as you don't mind the risk of running into one of the home's alleged shadow figures or spirits, who seem to be manly friendly, not vengeful.

• 46:27Speaker 00

  While a lot of the legends about Sarah Winchester seem unlikely, she was, in a way, driven by the ghosts who haunted her. But aren't we all? Thank you for listening to Conspiracy Theories. We're here with a new episode every Wednesday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram, at The Conspiracy Pod. And if you're watching on Spotify, swipe up and give us your thoughts. Our sources for today's episode include Captive of the Labyrinth, Sarah L. Winchester, Heir to the Rifle Fortune by Mary Jo Ignoffo, and Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places by Colin Dickey.

• 47:12Speaker 00

  Until next time, remember, the truth isn't always the best story, and the official story isn't always the truth. This episode was written and researched by Joel Callan and Mickey Taylor, edited by Kate Gallagher, fact-checked by Cheyenne Lopez, and engineered, video-edited, and sound-designed by Alex Button. I'm your host, Carter Roy.

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