The Sallie House: America's Most Haunted?

Atchison, Kansas probably doesn’t ring a bell for most people. If you have heard of it, it might be in regards to it being the birthplace of Amelia Earhart. The house she was born in is now a museum, located on North Terrace Street in this small city. A mere 0.2 miles away, however, at 508 North 2nd Street, you’ll find what’s become known as The Sallie House. And what’s so special about this place, you may ask? Well, this is a story about ghosts. And not just that—The Sallie House has a reputation as one of the most haunted, if not the most haunted house in America.

The Slightly Nebulous History of the Sallie House

What are the ingredients of a good haunted house backstory? Death, obviously, preferably in a violent or tragic way. If a child’s involved, so much the creepier. Moving objects, cold spots, unexplained electrical phenomena, apparitions and actual contact between the living and the dead are the sorts of things you’d be looking for when making a haunted house checklist—and The Sallie House can mark every box with a big fat tick. And how about some photographic and even video evidence? Check and check again.

Even though the history behind the paranormal activity associated with the house is kind of open for debate with more than one origin story floating around, it is generally agreed that there is “something” or “someone” haunting the place. So let’s go back a little bit and find out about the most popular version of how the ghost came to be.

Back in the 1800s, Dr. Michael Finney bought a couple of plots of land on North 2nd Street and ended up building two houses there, numbers 504 and 508. 508 was finished in 1870 with Dr. Finney unfortunately dying only 2 years later. Number 508 at least remained in the Finney family for decades after.

Early in the 20th century, Finney’s son Charles, another doctor, was living and working in number 508. The whole downstairs of the place was set up like a doctor’s office with personal living areas on the upper floor. In the middle of night sometime in 1906, the doctor was woken by a frantic knocking at his door.

Opening up, he was met with a frightened mother holding her young daughter in her arms. This little girl was suffering from horrendous stomach pains which Dr. Finney Jr was quick to diagnose as acute appendicitis.

Knowing time was short, he hurried the girl to a table but—and the tale differs slightly here—either knocked the ether over in his haste or didn’t allow it long enough to take effect before deciding to operate. Either way, he attempted an appendectomy with no anesthetic on a young child which ended with her dying horribly in pain and distress in the surgery. Since then, the spirit of the girl, who was later identified as “Sallie,” has haunted the house, behaving in a hostile manner towards men in particular—which, it must be said, is pretty understandable.

Another variation on the story is that Sallie and her mother actually roomed in the house so were already very familiar with Dr. Finney, and that Dr. Finney was incompetent and had botched the operation or misdiagnosed Sallie.

Yet another version is that Dr. Finney had an affair with an African American woman and Sallie was their illegitimate child. When she became too ill for him to help, he refused to take her to a hospital, resulting in her death. Sallie’s mother then attacked him and he either killed her or she died by accident. This left two spirits, a woman and a child, haunting the house at 508 North 2nd Street.

The Pickmans

We’re now in the early 1990s. The house is owned by a Mr. Leslie Smith and he’s renting it out for the first time to a young married couple called Tony and Debra Pickman. In 1993, Tony and Debra Pickman and their infant son moved into their new place in Atchison, Kansas.

They were not aware of its spooky history and neither, apparently, was their landlord, Leslie Smith. Over the course of their tenure in the Sallie House, which lasted for just under 2 years, the Pickmans bore witness to numerous strange events, some of which were later documented by film crews.

The Pickmans were featured in a documentary about the house, explaining their experiences firsthand, with shots of photos taken and some video footage too. After having experienced some weird stuff in their new place, they brought in psychics and mediums to try and get some answers, and eventually one of these psychics hooked them up with the big guns of paranormal programming such as Unsolved Mysteries and Sightings.

One of the first things the Pickmans experienced in the Sallie House was your standard creepy occurrence of a load of stuffed animals being placed in a circle in their baby’s room. Once having confirmed that nobody in the house had done it, they put the toys back and went downstairs. The lights went out briefly and after they came back on, the Pickmans ventured upstairs again to find the toys once more in a circle on the floor.

After a few other occurrences of electrical weirdness, cold spots and pictures mysteriously being hung upside down, Tony’s brother was around one day and decided to bait the spirit of the house a bit. Placing a teddy bear on a table, Tony’s brother got a camera and announced that if the ghost wanted to do anything, he was ready to take a picture of it. Right on cue as he pressed the button, the teddy bear began to spin around on the spot.

The photo that came out is a picture of the room with an odd light blurred patch in the middle. There are several photos taken in the house that show strange dark patches or weird, light portions in various rooms, and there’s also a photo of a candle with wax that had melted upwards, past the wick. After the spinning bear incident, the family freaked out a bit and decided to go and stay with Tony’s mother for the night.

As they were leaving, Tony felt a stinging sensation on his back which didn’t go away, and when Debra checked later, he had three long scratches there which were also photographed. This was the first time Tony was attacked by the ghost in the house but unfortunately for him, it wouldn’t be the last.

Due to Atchison being a small place, the Pickmans didn’t want to get a reputation as weirdos or kooks for going on about their haunted house. They also didn’t want the embarrassment of local media attention, so they enlisted the help of a co-worker’s relative called Barbara Connor. She was a psychic and had been living in California so had no knowledge of, or ties to the house and could investigate without causing a load of local gossip.

She quickly located the spirit of a young girl and attached the name “Sallie” to her for the first time, thus creating the nickname of The Sallie House. So much for keeping everything under the radar, however, as the feature goes on to say: “with Barbara’s connections to California, it wouldn’t be long before film crews were beating a path to the little town in the prairie.”

Shows like Unsolved Mysteries and Sightings contacted Barbara to get them in with the Pickmans.

The day before the first crew filmed anything, property owner Leslie Smith did a walkthrough of the house. In the feature he says he doesn’t believe in the supernatural and didn’t think the house was haunted in any way. As a joke he spoke out loud to the ghost before he left and said something like: “Sallie, if you’re there and you don’t want them filming you, you just give me a call, ok? Give me two rings twice so I know it’s you. G’bye now.” He wrote down his number and left it by the phone.

Later that day, his phone started ringing and stopped after two rings before he could pick up. He had kind of forgotten his earlier instructions, but then when the phone rang twice again and stopped, he suddenly remembered. Picking up the receiver, all he could hear was some static. He called a handy priest friend who told him not to get involved any further, to carry out anything he’d promised the spirit and then just leave it all alone.

Smith told the film crew they could film for one day but then they had to leave. He didn’t try talking to Sallie again.

The crew for the show Sightings ended up coming to the Sallie House five times over the two years the Pickmans were there, and strange things did indeed occur. Tony Pickman would suddenly be covered in scratches, ranging from a few on his arm to a whole mass across his chest and stomach and some long, deep ones on his back. These are not light marks he could have done just before—they are proper nasty looking scratches. There is apparently a 9-minute sequence of uncut footage showing scratches forming on his skin from nowhere.

Eventually Tony started seeing apparitions of a young girl dressed in old fashioned clothes. He drew her one day and he and his wife agreed this must be Sallie. Tony definitely bore the brunt of the hauntings, as he also started hearing scratching in the walls and sounds like furniture being dragged around, although Debra didn’t seem to hear the same things.

Then one day when he was lying down trying to rest, a lady wearing black lace gloves materialized before him and shot out a hand saying “I’m gonna…” and then she disappeared, leaving Tony terrified. Things finally came to a head when Tony became worried over his wife Debra’s safety. In the feature, he says: “I would watch her getting ready for work and the whole time I’m thinking, I just want to hurt her, I wanted to stab her to be honest with you, that was the thought going through my mind.”

Luckily, instead of killing his wife or going to marriage counseling, the Pickmans finally moved out.

At some point in the intervening years, other evidence of bad stuff happening at The Sallie House came to light. A pentagram was found on the basement floor along with other evidence of Satanic signs and rituals. A bloody sweater was found in the attic and a luminol test confirmed evidence of blood spray in a closet. Kate Peltzer, who lived in the house next to the Sallie House, said that when she went into the basement to check it out with a group of researchers, bricks were dropped on them.

There weren’t any bricks in the basement. She also said her young son had a room that was facing a bedroom in the Sallie House. He would get scared at night and point at what he said was a black monster flying around his room.

Many years later the Pickmans visited the Sallie House again with a psychic friend, and this time after they’d looked around for a bit, Tony was thrown backwards with such force that his laced-up shoes flew off. He couldn’t get up off the floor until their psychic friend told the spirit to let him go in the name of God.

After this incident, in 2009 or so, the Pickmans teamed up with EVP expert and paranormal investigator Michael Esposito and a couple of new psychic mediums, including Canadian Robbie Thomas who apparently is quite a big name in the world of psychics. EVP, by the way, stands for “Electronic Voice Phenomenon” and is where people go around with some form of electronic audio recording device and you can sometimes capture brief ghostly noises and voices on them—allegedly. Anyway, Esposito is filming the Pickmans and a medium during a séance with the lights off.

The medium has made contact with an adult woman and is asking whether she wants them to bring a priest to the house when you see Tony suddenly scoot backwards and almost swear, although he does remember he’s on camera so tries to cover it up. He then says: “It burns.” The lights go back on.

Tony lifts his shirt up for the umpteenth time and you can see a bald patch where his hair has been singed off and a mark starting to form. Esposito mentions that there’s a burning smell in the air.

The psychic medium Robbie Thomas walks around the house and in his opinion, he can sense at least two young girls and there is also the presence of something more menacing and probably male. He thinks that “Sallie” refers not to a child but to the doll of a child. He gets the names “Emily” and “Anna” from the house. He also brings his “spirit sensitive” dog to the house and it point-blank refuses to enter one of the bedrooms.

Other people including Debra Pickman have also theorized that it is, indeed, a malevolent demon in the house masquerading as a little girl. But what should we make of all this? Can we make a clear judgment one way or the other?

Let’s Get to the Skepticism

While there does seem to be a lot of compelling evidence for a real life haunting at the Sallie House, there are definitely things that a very amateur investigator can poke a few holes in.

1. The Lack of Prior Reports

Why hadn’t any reports of ghostly behaviour come out prior to the Pickmans living there in 1993? Apparently the tenants before the Pickmans had said that they also were aware of “Sallie” and that their daughter had called her her imaginary friend. There’s not much more detail than that though, so either they’re making it up after the fact or they just experienced a few odd bumps and flickers and put it down to a generic “ghost in the house.”

The landlord, Leslie Smith, was also not aware of any ghostly goings on. The Pickmans were his first tenants, so presumably he bought the house after the other tenants moved out, maybe not giving him any time to acquaint himself with the resident ghost before renting the place out again. Either Sallie really had something against the Pickmans or they’re just making the whole thing up.

2. Why Didn’t They Leave Earlier?

The Pickmans, and especially Tony, were subjected to a barrage of supernatural attacks shortly after they moved in. Why did they stay for two years? If weird scratches start appearing on your body and your candles are melting upwards, losing the deposit is the last thing you’d be thinking about. Cynically speaking, maybe they only stayed while the TV people were still interested.

3. The Good Timing of the TV Crews

After his initial back scratches, the only time Tony Pickman was attacked was when there was a camera crew there. And for a couple who initially said they wanted no publicity because of embarrassment, they sure were featured on a lot of TV shows, including as recently as 2015 in an episode of Ghost Adventures.

4. Issues with the Documentary

Michael Esposito, the paranormal investigator, is featured quite heavily in the documentary. However, he relates things from the Pickmans’ story that he had no firsthand knowledge of, such as a rose that was found burning on the table. He wasn’t there to see it—he just apparently knows about it from the Pickmans. He tells stories of things that happened to them but without them also being there, who knows how much is true or exaggerated?

Also, in his footage of the séance, the medium is communing with the spirit and asking it questions but she’s sitting at the back of the shot, kind of out of the way, and the camera is aimed quite squarely at Tony Pickman, handily catching his reaction as his stomach is apparently burned. On the footage, it’s actually hard to see the singe mark they’re pointing out, although it does look like his hair is disappearing. We hear Esposito say that the sulfur smell they smelled earlier must have been the burning hair.

Is this just a case of them narrating what we’re supposed to believe? After the initial shock it seems like it’s all over and Tony just lies back in relief and is all smiles—which is a weird reaction. If your body hair just started burning off for no reason you’d be freaking out for a lot longer than a couple of seconds.

The footage is quite bad quality so it’s hard to really be sure of what we’re looking at.

Moving on to Robbie Thomas, the psychic medium: it says in the documentary that he always does a walkthrough of any house he’s asked to look at the day before any official reading is carried out. Why is a pre-reading walkthrough necessary if you’re a psychic? Cynics might think that he’s getting the lay of the land to provide a more believable session the next day.

He didn’t really add much to the story, just confirmed cold spots and the presence of a young child. He also threw the names “Emily” and “Anna” around later, but these are pretty meaningless as no violent deaths have ever officially been recorded at the Sallie House so they can’t be attached to anyone in the historical record. He also says there is a lot of orb activity which is related to psychic activity, but he actually says: “So this to me is a bunch of orbs.

I’ve got my eyes closed and I can see maybe 10, 12 different kinds of orbs.” He has his eyes closed.

5. The EVP Stuff

As mentioned previously, EVP stands for Electronic Voice Phenomenon and is one of those branches of paranormal study that can’t really be ruled in or ruled out as evidence of ghosts. Michael Esposito takes a few recordings around the Sallie House which are in the documentary, handily subtitled so we know what we’re supposed to be listening for. One such instance is a voice allegedly saying “he’s the devil” which is extremely difficult to make out.

There are a few other things, generally alluding to some powerful male being, but EVP can be explained by a human’s tendency to try and find patterns and meanings where there are none. It’s also possible that perfectly normal signals were picked up in the ambient noise that came from sources other than the spirit realm.

6. The Weird Basement

Signs of a pentagram and Satanic rituals were apparently found, but that’s about as much information as is available. Who knows when the pentagram was originally drawn—it could have been any time before, during or after the Pickmans’ tenure. Michael Esposito takes a group of ghost hunters into the basement and starts talking about someone being a witch. Who is he talking about?

Sallie? A previous occupant? The ghost lady? There’s a black mark on the floor and Esposito said that there was a pentagram underneath but Leslie Smith, the house’s owner, covered it up.

We don’t hear anything from Leslie about this.

The blood found in the closet is creepy but again, there isn’t much more detail available. This seems like an added-on part of the story, not part of the main ghostly narrative.

7. The Book

Debra Pickman published a book in 2010 called The Sallie House Haunting. Some unexpected revelations came out of this that weren’t really touched on in the documentary. These included the fact that the Pickmans were told by psychic Barbara Connor to treat the ghost of little Sallie as an adopted daughter, so they left out toys and crayons for her and basically just got on with living in a haunted house and treated her as an invisible child.

Debra also believed that Sallie was her baby’s guardian angel. Baby Pickman would wake up all the time, but Debra came to believe that Sallie was intentionally waking him up to protect him from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome—which is totally impossible to prove. This is a new aspect to their relationship with the ghost that isn’t usually part of the story of the haunted house.

This book came out years after they’d left the house, but then a few years on again, Debra is now changing her tune on a new TV show and saying she believes the ghost was a demon all along. She seems kind of unemotional in the documentary, unlike Tony who is tearing up and getting goosebumps just talking about various things that happened to him.

8. The Neighbour

Kate Peltzer’s tale of having bricks dropped on her and a team of investigators was quite weird, as she said there was no handy pile of bricks, the walls were stone, the ceiling was wood and there was nowhere for a random brick to fall from. She did say, though, that the bricks were only dropped when the lights were turned out. Her son having nightmares and pointing to a monster flying round his room can be easily discounted as just childish fears.

Things That Can’t Be Explained

Right, enough of the doubting—let’s talk about the genuinely odd things the Pickmans experienced. In season 3, episode 1 of Sightings called “Heartland Ghost,” we see many examples of photos, usually of their baby, with weird blue patches over parts of the picture, blurry areas or strange light blotches. Photos can easily be faked or overexposed, but only part of these pictures are affected. Would the couple be doing this right at the beginning of their stay at the Sallie House without knowing the alleged backstory? The one expert featured on the show couldn’t give a satisfactory explanation for how these weird pictures could have been made.

Also, what was going on with Tony Pickman and his scratches? Although it hasn’t been seen directly by all investigators, there is apparently a 9-minute section of uncut footage where you see scratches start forming on his body with no outside interference. There is a part in the Sightings episode where you hear him cry out and the crew rushes over and you see some bleeding cuts on his upper arm, but this could have been faked as we didn’t see what he was doing beforehand. His wife just admonishes the ghost of Sallie and doesn’t seem particularly bothered one way or the other.

The burning stomach hair is also a bit strange. We’re being told what we’re supposed to be seeing and smelling by Michael Esposito, the film quality is not very high, and sometimes it looks like hair being burned away and other times it’s not clear. If Tony was self-inflicting these scratches, or if Debra was doing it, they really went to town—there are photos of his chest with a shed load of nasty red scratches all over it, like he’d been mauled by a really disgruntled cat. He gets them on his back too, which would be very hard to self-inflict anyway, never mind in a surreptitious manner.

Conclusions

So after all is said and done, it’s difficult to know what to think. It’s unclear when the whole Sallie-dying-during-an-appendectomy story started and, really, appendectomies weren’t in your average doctor’s playbook in 1906 so if Sallie really did exist, she was pretty screwed from the start. It seems the urban legend behind the hauntings grew from information given out by the psychics. Barbara Connor was the first person to suggest the name “Sallie” and that wasn’t until 1993.

So maybe that whole backstory just evolved and was embellished until it became what it is today. Only it’s not really as scary when you realize it’s only 30 years old.

The Pickmans, although they used pseudonyms in the Sightings show, got some level of notoriety and, presumably, money from the whole experience. Even though they lived there less than 2 years, they have gone back multiple times since with various TV crews, usually to Tony’s detriment. Debra also wrote that book and their experiences have brought thousands of tourists, psychics and amateur ghost hunters to 508 North 2nd Street. If we believe in the presence of ghosts in the house, we have to assume the spirits were either dormant or not particularly nasty until over 80 years later when the Pickmans moved in, as there was no buzz about the house at all before they took up residence. It’s not clear if the ghostly activity continued after they’d gone either. There are no other families linked to the story so maybe Sallie just went to sleep again.

Debra Pickman’s change of heart is troubling. While she was living in the Sallie House, she just seemed to put up with the ghostly occurrences and treated Sallie as a member of the family. Over 10 years after she moved out, she wrote a book about her experience, mentioning that she thought her baby was protected by Sallie. What then changed, that a few years later she suddenly started saying that Sallie was a malevolent demon disguised as a little girl?

Was it just that people were losing interest in the story so she threw in a new angle?

Really, the main beneficiary of the story is Les Smith, the owner of the Sallie House. Apparently he still owns it today, and you can go and see the Sallie House for yourself and even spend the night there if you so wish. It’s currently $125 per person or a bit more during Halloween season, but you’re not allowed to go in the basement. Some people say they felt and experienced things, others say nothing happened at all. The only way to convince yourself one way or the other would be to go and spend the night there—but for many, the question remains: is The Sallie House truly America’s most haunted, or simply its most haunted story?

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Sallie House?

The Sallie House is a reputedly haunted house located at 508 North 2nd Street in Atchison, Kansas. It is known for its paranormal activity and is often referred to as one of the most haunted houses in America.

Who was Dr. Michael Finney?

Dr. Michael Finney was the original owner of the Sallie House. He built the house in 1870 and died two years later. The house remained in the Finney family for decades.

What is the most popular story behind the haunting of the Sallie House?

The most popular story involves Dr. Charles Finney, son of Dr. Michael Finney, who attempted an appendectomy on a young girl named Sallie without anesthetic, resulting in her death. Sallie’s spirit is said to haunt the house, particularly targeting men.

Who were Tony and Debra Pickman?

Tony and Debra Pickman were a young married couple who rented the Sallie House in the early 1990s. They experienced numerous strange and paranormal events during their tenure, which they later documented and shared with the media.

What kind of paranormal activities did the Pickmans experience?

The Pickmans reported various paranormal activities, including moving objects, cold spots, unexplained electrical phenomena, apparitions, and physical attacks on Tony, such as scratches and burns.

What is the significance of the name ‘Sallie’?

The name ‘Sallie’ was given to the ghost by a psychic named Barbara Connor. It is believed to be the spirit of a young girl who died in the house during a botched medical procedure.

What evidence supports the haunting of the Sallie House?

Evidence includes photographs with strange light patches, video footage of moving objects, and personal accounts of physical attacks and apparitions. Additionally, a pentagram and signs of Satanic rituals were found in the basement.

What happened during the Pickmans’ séance with Michael Esposito?

During a séance with Michael Esposito, Tony Pickman experienced a burning sensation on his stomach, resulting in singed hair and a mark. The event was captured on video, but the authenticity of the footage is debated.

What is the current status of the Sallie House?

The Sallie House is still owned by Leslie Smith and is open for tours and overnight stays. Visitors can experience the house for themselves, with prices varying depending on the season.

Sources

• Original Decoding the Unknown video: The Sallie House: America’s Most Haunted?
• Hero image source by publichall / openverse, by-sa.