The Paranormal Encounters at Healthy Families in San Angelo

When Healthy Families took over the office building at 200 S. Magdalen St. in 1995 from the city, they knew the building was old and had once been the old firehouse and a senior citizen and recreation center. The building, which was built in 1929, still contains a water mark, a testimony to the building’s survival of the catastrophic flood in 1936. This building undoubtedly has a rich history and rich memories for the people who have lived in the city all their lives, and for those who have passed. However, for 10 years prior to the new inhabitants’ arrival, the building sat dark but not empty.

“When we first came to look at the building, we found all kinds of stuff,” said Miki Clemens, special projects coordinator for Healthy Families. “There was an old piano. It was all broken.”

Clemens also said she and the staff noticed old furniture and a stand where employees at the retirement center must have served food from in the building. The stand had lattice on it, and layers of dirt and asbestos filled every room.

Below: The lobby of Healthy Kids used to be an area where senior citizens played bingo, ate lunch and visited.(LIVE! Photo\John Basquez)

Once the building was clean and asbestos free, company employees moved in and set up their offices upstairs where firefighters once lived, slept and showered, and slid down the poles when emergencies arose. Staff made the first floor the lobby for Healthy Families and filled it with cushy couches, a table for families to visit and literature on the services the organization provides, but that used to be the area where the elderly played bingo, ate and enjoyed interaction.

Therefore, when employees started joking around with one another that the place was “haunted” after gradually noticing strange things, and with the amazing history of the building, Gardner Wiseheart said, “It doesn’t surprise me that energy funnels back through here.”

When employees started sharing their stories about this energy and noticed similarities, the staff knew it to be something more. West Texas Paranormal, an organization that engages in the forensic investigation of hauntings and paranormal activity in San Angelo and across west Texas, has the forensic evidence and unexplainable tragedies to prove that energy is indeed something real.

Gardner’s Stories

Telling all the stories about the Healthy Families building is difficult for some of the employees because they’ve witnessed many things, including the heaviness of that energy as soon as they walk through the doors of the building. It’s a feeling that drags the body down a bit, causes the hairs on the arms or the neck to rise, and creates a tingling sensation that creeps down the back. As people move through each room and stairway, that sensation changes. In some areas, like the basement, it gets worse, and in other areas, it feels lighter; however, that sensation remains constant, and that’s the feeling Gardner started experiencing after purchasing the building, and he continues to experience during the work week.

“Really it’s not all that scary,” Gardner claimed. “I’ve heard my name when nobody’s here, and a number of times have felt that prickly hair on my neck standing up.”

Like many of the employees, he hears things like people walking up and down the stairs, but no one is there. While he may not find those things that scary, there are many employees who feel differently. In fact, the activity has gotten to a state where many of the staff now refuse to work after 5 p.m., or will just pack up and leave because they’re so scared. One employee, Laura, does exactly that.

“Laura will not be here by herself after 5 o’clock,” Gardner said. “She’ll be in the middle of whatever she’s in the middle of, and if the last person’s leaving, she’s like ‘Okay, I’m right behind ya!’” Gardner and Miki said that's understandable after Laura witnessed the shadow of a person staring down at her from the window one evening after everyone had left. 

Additionally, Gardner’s wife, Carolyn, once had "a force" push her into a wall upstairs.  

“Everyone has their own stories,” noted Gardner. “Folks who are up here at night can tell you stories. Radios turn on and off. Doors close, and you’ll hear your name and you know you’re alone. You also hear lots of walking and the stairs squeaking.”

Rene’s Story

Rene Massey, who has worked at Healthy Families for nine years and began experiencing strange things almost immediately, also caught shadows a few times passing the window close to where she parks. There are many nights she has to stay working late with no one around, and after she locks up and walks to her car, that’s when she’ll notice.

“I’ll look up and I’ll see a shadow go by the window,” Rene said.

Additionally, Miki explained that when the company originally took over the building, the floors had tile throughout, and that setup left little to the imagination when people moved around. Rene added that staff also had tables and wooden chairs placed upstairs that made a bit of noise.

“I’d often be here by myself, and I’d hear the chairs scoot, so I’d get up and go ‘Helo?’, and nobody was there. We also used to get the daily newspaper and I’d hear those shuffling,” she continued.

When the shuffling continued, Rene would repeat herself and ask “Hello?” but never received an answer. Additionally, there’s a hook hanging on the bathroom door upstairs, and a previous employee who worked alone one evening heard that hook moving.

“She got up to investigate and the hook was swinging. She was the only one here,” Rene claimed.

Rene said another time her office mate Jane was preparing to move back to North Carolina, and about a month or so before she left and started the process of packing, papers began to push off her desk repeatedly despite no presence of a fan and the windows being closed.

“Are you doing something?” Jane asked Rene.

“What do you mean am I doing something?” the office mate questioned. “I’m not doing anything.”

That wasn’t the first time the so-called energy messed with Jane, who Rene described as “real sensitive.” In fact, Rene added that one time her office mate had to go down into the basement because she was putting things away, and she felt a strong “pressing feeling” in her chest.

“This was before we knew someone had had a heart attack here,” Rene said. “So I was up in the office, and she came in white as a sheet, and I asked, ‘What’s the matter with you?’”

When Jane told her what happened, Rene prayed with her friend and office mate.

“She calmed down, but said, ‘I definitely felt someone down there with me,'" Rene recalled.

Interestingly, the stories don’t end there. About three months ago, Rene shared how she and her friend and coworker, Brenda, were upstairs early in the lunch hour, and they hung out at her desk talking. Everyone else left the building to go out to lunch.

She said, “We heard footsteps coming down the hall, and then we heard keys jangling; and we kept looking to see who’s coming, but no one was coming.”

Rene noted that a year or so ago, employees decided to call their friend Mark. “So I said, ‘Oh, it’s just Mark,'" Rene joked. Brenda, however, said that had to be another employee, but Rene reiterated that Mark made the noise. When no one showed up, the women figured it to be true.

“We both got up and no one was here, but we heard heavy footsteps coming down the hall toward us and their keys jangling,” Rene repeated.

Below: This hallway has a high level of energetic activity and the temperature changes randomly. (LIVE! Photo\Brandy Ramirez)

Overall, Rene said she wouldn’t call her experiences scary per say, but rather as a “Oh my goodness, he’s real" type of situation.

“I’m a Christian, so I’m not afraid,” she stated. “[Mark has] never given me any reason to be afraid. I think he’s more playful than anything.”

Also, although many Christians claim ghosts aren’t real or they’re demons, she feels that's not the case, especially after her experience with Mark and the incidents she has experienced at her farm house in the country. The old inhabitants, an elderly couple who have passed on, have revealed themselves to her on occasion. Rene once heard clanking around in her kitchen, and the landlady, who is the couple’s granddaughter, said the deceased woman used to cook for people at her church. Additionally, her grandfather passed away in the yard where he liked to work, and Rene caught a shadow moving in pictures she took of the sunset. This shadow appeared in several pictures and in the same spot where the man passed away.

“Both of my parents and all my grandparents are gone, and it kind of ticks me off that I see ghosts and none of them belong to me,” Rene said. “I’m thinking that’s not really fair. Why do I have to see somebody else? I don’t know why it happens that way, but I do believe it does happen that way. I don’t think there’s any evil with the ghosts I’ve encountered because they’re sweet, funny and playful. Maybe they’re not aware that they’ve passed, and maybe it’s the house that makes that person feel comfortable. Who am I to say exactly what heaven is? I don’t know yet.”

Miki’s Story

Miki has been with Healthy Families for many years, and when the company transferred from the old location to this building on Magdalen, she too knew something didn’t seem right.

Where Miki’s desk sits upstairs, many people have to walk past her to get to the stairs, so she’ll see shadows pass by; she figures they’re people leaving.

“And then somebody will come back in and I’ll say, ‘Oh did you forget something?’" Miki said. "Then they’ll say, ‘What?'" Afterward, she’ll then ask her fellow employees if they just left, but they’ll tell her no they didn’t.

“I see a lot of the peripheral stuff,” Miki added.

Miki also explained that there’s a dog that appears in the office close to her desk. It used to be the fire chief’s office, so the group’s not surprised about the location of the animal.

“He likes to be in the corner in one of the offices upstairs, and I think [West Texas Paranormal] caught a shadow of what they thought was the dog crossing over Miki’s desk,” Renee chimed in.

Miki also said last Halloween, employees were decorating, and one woman had a camera on a tripod.

“She was testing the camera and took some shots,” Miki explained. “When she went back to look through the pictures, she found the shadow in them. The couch looks normal in one spot, but then the shadows appear.”

Below: Can you tell where the "shadow" is in this picture? (Contributed Photo\Healthy Families San Angelo)

That couch where the film caught the shadow is where the staff take family photos during the organization’s annual Halloween party,” Miki said.

Some of What the Staff Learned from The West Texas Paranormal Investigation

Originally, Gardner and Miki said prior to West Texas Paranormal investigators coming out to Healthy Families to conduct an investigation, another local group came out and did the same thing. The people told them and the other staff members they were going to turn the investigation into a television series. They set up tons of equipment in the lobby, did their investigation and left.

“It was real interesting. The guy never got back with us, and I never heard from him again,” Miki stated.

After that, Gardner spoke with Steve Haidinger, someone he knows, and after sharing his story with the investigator, Steve asked if his team could come out to the building for an investigation. Gardner agreed.

Above: A shadow of a dog can be seen in the corner of this office at Healthy Families in San Angelo.(LIVE! Photo\Brandy Ramirez)

It took about six months to a year, Gardner acknowledged, but when the investigation finally took place, staff got the answers they were looking for.

“They picked up something that sounded like a staff meeting,” Gardner said of one finding, which the group documented on a disk. “There were also sounds that, in certain areas in the building, show more energy of different types than other areas. There’s a place in the hallway upstairs where the poles used to be, and they picked up that somebody had a heart attack.”

Gardner added that the actual poles were in what is now the bathroom and where the central heating and air unit sits. He mentioned another area that had a lot of energy included the hose tower where the firemen used to dry the water hoses.

“There was someone who fell to his death in that area,” Gardner stated. He also added, “When the ‘Ghostbusters’ were here, I was moving around with them, and I felt and saw a number of things, and I was able to look through their equipment and see them enhanced.”

Healthy Families’ Energy from One Investigator’s Perspective

In essence, Mark isn’t the only presence in the building, but for the employees who have been around Mark and the others, they still maintain these energies aren’t dangerous; however, one member of the West Texas Paranormal Investigator’s group had a different perspective.

Raymond Francis, a newer member of the group, said he joined West Texas Paranormal because he liked how the organization takes a scientific approach to investigating the supernatural occurrences. He has engaged in a handful of investigations, including those out at Fort Concho; however, his experience at Healthy Families is something he’ll likely not forget anytime soon.

When the group got to the Healthy Families building in March of 2014 to do the first of their two investigations, Steve Haidinger set up command in the lobby area where he would remain during the investigation. However, before the nine investigators separated into groups, they took their preliminary steps.

“Whenever we’re going to do an initial investigation of a place, no matter what it is or how it is, we go through and we check with the EMF meter to make sure nothing’s going to interfere with the equipment. It’s an initial sweep,” Ray explained.

Ray also said they went into that area because the hallway up there had the most activity. As employees explained, the area that now inhabits the desks and offices of Healthy Families staff used to be a bunk area for firefighters.

At the beginning, Ray stated everyone found spots where the temperature changed from hot to cold. In the video presented by the group, one of the investigators acknowledged the change in temperature and said, “I can feel something cold.”

One of the instruments recorded a random fluctuation of temperature patterns, and at one point, the temperature dropped from 74 to 44 degrees in the area the cameraman stood. The temperature changes and that feeling people get when their hair stands on end is the energy’s way of communicating. That’s its way of saying, ‘Hi,’” Ray said. “That’s one of [its] little queues.”

He also explained the equipment used for the reading included a video camera, an infrared camera that can detect temperatures, digital recordings (nothing really fancy) and an EMF reader that determines energy. With these instruments in hand, and as the investigation resumed, Ray and his colleagues began to ask questions. In one instance, one of the investigators began questioning a presence felt upstairs, and recorded its response. Each time investigators asked a question, they gave a brief time for response.

“It can be a one-word response; it can be two words. It can be a sentence. It really just depends at that moment in time,” Ray noted.

When the investigators asked the presence if it was a firefighter, it replied “no.”

“I asked if the ghost worked in the city and he said no,” Ray recalled about the distinct answer. “There’s no telling who it was. I don’t remember us getting a name.”

Additionally, at different times, the group thought they saw something in the hallway where the poles, chief’s office and bunk area used to sit. That hallway has tons of energy.

“We saw something peeking around the corner. We didn’t catch anything we knew of at that time,” Ray said.

The group also saw a light glaring in one of the dark staircases in the back of the building by a storage area. There are storage areas in that part, and the top two shelves are stacked with dolls. The group saw this light going into that room, and for several moments, they tried to determine if it was a presence or a light gleam. The investigators debunked that information and proved the dolls’ eyeballs caused the glare.

“You’re going from the scientific part of it to prove the legitimate and illegitimate way of [the investigation],” Ray explained about the process. In other words, he said, the group takes a scientific approach where they determine if something is valid or invalid.

Later, Ray said he and a medium by the name of Heather Stout, went down into the basement, which the employees all claim is the “creepiest” part of the building and where the feeling that someone’s there intensifies. Ray said he had that feeling, “I don’t want to be down there,” but managed to make his way beside his colleague.

When they got to the basement, Ray said, “Something didn’t want us there.” As Heather looked around, he noticed something bothering her, so he asked, "Are you okay."

"I'm fine," she responded. 

Thus, with the infrared camera, Ray shot random video at various times, but said he didn’t see anything. Heather, on the other hand, told Ray someone stood there watching them, and towards the end of their time in the basement, she saw a black mask on the ground swirling.

With the movement of the mask, Heather began to feel queasy, and so did Ray. Thus, they left the room, and when they got back upstairs, the queasiness subsided and they felt better.

“That was just a physical reaction to whatever was there,” he said. “That’s their way of saying, ‘I don’t want you here.’”

The group finished their investigation in the early morning. The group compared data, and reviewed the information in a way that didn’t obscure it. Once everyone gave their thoughts on it, they made their final claim, and concluded “there’s something there.”

However, after that investigation at Healthy Families, two of the investigators there that night faced terrible tragedies. Ray said one young woman in the group lost her grandmother in a house fire that night, and an older lady, also a member of the group, died in a car wreck two or three weeks later. As a result, the group didn’t post their investigation online, and now Steve is being very careful bringing somebody new into the group because of these tragedies.

“Could you look at it as a huge coincidence?” Ray asked. “Yes. Could you prove that what happened to them was a direct result of doing this investigation? I can’t say yes or no. I don’t think so, but it was strange those incidents happened right after that.”

Since those tragedies occurred, the girl who lost her grandmother hasn’t returned to the group, nor has she contacted them; nor has the group talked to the family of the woman who lost her life.

Eventually, the group returned to Healthy Families for a follow up investigation a month or two later where Steve obtained additional evidence. One of the investigators, Sandy, was holding the camera and never pointed to anything specific, but noticed a shadow coming across Miki’s desk and in front of the camera.

“We knew it wasn’t a person,” Ray confirmed. “But you could see something moved.”

Above: This kitchen is a hub of spiritual activity. (LIVE! Photo\John Basquez)

Beyond the new evidence though, Ray endured another negative situation. This time, he had his now almost 4-year-old daughter with him. The man said as soon as he walked in with his daughter, he felt queasy, and that feeling intensified quickly. Because of that, Ray had to leave early, and as soon as he got home, the sickness went away.

Rays said he believes the presence in that building had an issue with him having his daughter there.

“There was something that didn’t want her there, and I’m not sure if it’s because the child is innocent and hasn’t experienced life yet, or what it was,” Ray theorized.

Regardless of the reason, that presence didn’t want his daughter there. The way Ray described the energy in the building, and with the tragedies that occurred, the investigators view the spirits in the Healthy Families building in a different light than the employees. On a scale of 1 to 10 based on what he he has experienced, and with 10 being the scariest, Ray gave Healthy Families an 8.

“It wasn’t like I wanted to run away from that building screaming, scared or anything like that, but it was just an uneasy feeling from that building that nobody liked.