Welcome back to another Freaky Friday post. Be sure to subscribe to read new stories every Friday. Now, let’s talk about some haunted bunkbeds.
The Tallman family consists of Allen, Debbie, and their three children. In interviews and articles, they've requested that their kids remain anonymous, so I’ll respect that, even though Unsolved Mysteries inadvertently revealed their son’s name right after Debbie mentioned it—a fun fact: they performed all the reenactments in their actual home. Their son was seven then, and their twin daughters were just about three. Debbie was a stay-at-home mom, while Allen worked as a shift supervisor at a manufacturing company.
In 1986, the Tallmans decided it was time to buy their forever home. They found the perfect house and moved in on April 13. Debbie described it as their dream home, located on Larabee Street in the suburban neighborhood of Horican, Wisconsin. Back in the '80s, Horican was a small town with a population of around 3,600, which is about the same today.
After moving in, they began updating the interior—nothing major, just some painting and minor renovations to make it feel like home. But soon after, strange occurrences began. The kids, who rarely got sick, suddenly became ill frequently. Debbie, busy caring for three sick children, initially brushed it off as a normal adjustment to their new environment or seasonal allergies. In hindsight, she suspects it was a precursor to the unsettling events that followed.
To furnish their daughters' room, they purchased a bunk bed from a secondhand store and stored it in the basement for a while. Allen wanted to make sure it was properly assembled and perhaps spruced up a bit. It's worth noting that the previous owners had reported no paranormal activity, and the Tallmans had not experienced anything unusual before bringing the bunk bed home.
Once the bed was set up, the creepy happenings began. Doors slammed on their own, furniture moved—especially chairs—and disembodied voices could be heard. The fact that the children were experiencing these phenomena made it all the creepier, as parents often dismiss what kids say.
The children's rooms were adjacent in their simple three-bedroom layout. Allen and Debbie had given their son an old clock radio for bedtime music. Soon, it started acting strangely, with the dial turning on its own and the indicator wildly fluctuating. When he reported this to his parents, they assumed he was just imagining things and took the radio away as a punishment.
After a few weeks of relative calm, Allen was painting the basement when Debbie called him up for a meal. Upon returning to the basement, he found the paintbrush inexplicably moved to the can of paint, handle down. He was unsettled but reluctant to admit that something was amiss.
One night, one of the girls sleeping in the bottom bunk told Debbie she had seen an old woman with long dark hair in her room, repeatedly saying “fire.” When Debbie and Allen heard this, they chose not to mention it to the other kids to avoid scaring them. However, their son later described seeing the same woman glowing red like fire.
Understandably shaken, they reached out to their priest, Wayne Dobratz, from St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church. He sensed an evil presence, describing it as demonic and of the occult. However, he didn’t take any action during his visit.
On Christmas Eve, tensions escalated. Frustrated, Allen tried to confront the entity, shouting for it to leave his children alone. He demanded that if it wanted to fight, it should fight him instead.
Fast forward to January 7. After returning from a night shift around 2 a.m., Allen heard howling noises near the garage, followed by a voice urging him to “come here.” As he investigated, he suddenly saw what looked like red flames emanating from the garage, prompting him to rush inside. But upon entering, there was no fire at all.
Confused, he picked up his lunch pail, only to have it yanked from his hands by an unseen force. After that, he began sleeping on the floor of the girls' room to keep watch over them. One night, he woke to what appeared to be fog in the room and heard a voice ominously say, “You’re going to die.” Terrified, he bolted from the room, leaving the girls behind. When Debbie checked on him, she found him pale, tear-streaked, and unable to speak. She called the pastor again, who confirmed their experiences but offered no solutions.
Concerned for his family’s safety, Allen asked his brother to stay with Debbie and the kids while he worked nights. But the strange occurrences continued, leading Debbie to declare that they needed to leave immediately. They packed up and moved to a different town just two weeks later, destroying the bunk bed rather than taking it with them.
After the Tallmans left, they reported no further paranormal activity, and the subsequent occupants of the home experienced nothing unusual either. Interestingly, some paranormal researchers suggested that the disturbances may have been due to the house being built on burial grounds rather than just the bunk bed itself. I don’t see this as very likely as there was no activity before the bed was there, nor after once it was removed. What do you think?