In 1894-1895, the American newspaper “Louisville Courier-Journal” published a series of notes about alarming incidents involving Sally Morton, a resident of Louisville, Kentucky.
Sally Morton was the owner of one of the local “disorderly houses” – establishments with dubious reputations where drug dens, brothels, or illegal bars were located.
It all started when in November 1894, Sally discovered her yard covered in salt. Shortly after, an even stranger incident occurred – she found a bundle of red flannel containing a bundle of hair similar to human hair, and three wooden figurines carved to resemble humans, in her bed.
Sally quickly recognized this as serious witchcraft in the local folklore aimed at killing the intended victim. She began accusing her neighbor, Alice Tucker, the owner of a competing disorderly house, of being behind these acts.
Several weeks passed, and on January 18, 1985, Sally Morton suddenly died on the spot. The examining physician attributed her death to angina. The coroner inspected the body and found no signs of violence, after which it was taken upstairs to prepare for burial.
As the body was being carried up the stairs, everyone in the house heard “sad mournful music” coming from the living room, as if someone were playing the piano there. However, the living room was empty at that moment, as people confirmed when they immediately entered it.
Night fell. Sally Morton’s body lay in her bedroom on the bed, and suddenly the bed began to tremble slightly, and then quite violently. This was witnessed by everyone who entered the bedroom. The shaking quickly intensified, and soon the entire bedroom was shaking.
Witnesses reported that the shaking was so strong that “a glass of water could not be placed on the nightstand or mattress without securing it.” The mirror on the wall swayed back and forth. Then several women who entered the bedroom to bid farewell to Sally Morton inexplicably fainted.
By the way, among them was Alice Tucker herself, who may have come there to see the result of her actions.
The shaking continued throughout the night and the following day, causing over fifteen hundred local residents to flock to the disorderly house, eager to witness the manifestation of the supernatural. Police were also called, who confirmed that the floor in the room was shaking severely.
On January 20, Sally Morton’s funeral took place, and while her body still lay in bed and had not been transferred to the coffin, the bed continued to shake violently for unknown reasons. One crafty dealer even started charging everyone who came in ten cents to view the shaking bed with Morton’s body on it.
Morton was buried in a local cemetery, but the priest was not present at the funeral. And a few days later, people began reporting that “eerie otherworldly sounds” were emanating from Morton’s former disorderly house, which now stood empty and closed.
The sounds were so frightening and persistent that some neighbors simply moved away, including Alice Tucker, who complained to the police that Sally Morton was trying to take revenge on her from beyond the grave in this way.
In the following years, newspapers occasionally wrote that ghosts haunted Sally Morton’s former house, which no one bought and which now stood abandoned.
