Marilee's parents moved over to St. Louis not long after. The house was then home to a local banker and his wife. As the elderly ladies had told me, she shot him and then herself. The house was purchased from the estate by the bankers niece who was found at the bottom of the grand staircase with a broken neck by her kids. Then the looming old mansion stood empty for several years again, it was empty this time as the Nieces husband took almost all the furniture. It became unclear for several years as to why the niece's husband left the place sit instead of selling it and no one really knew where he was. The folks on either side paid their gardeners extra to at least keep the grass maintained to keep the mice and snakes down.
One day in the early 50's a woman named Margie rang the bell at the judge's house. She introduced herself to the judge's elderly parents as the lady who bought the charming old house across the street. Judge, now a man in his early 50's came out of the library and saw a woman standing there "dressed to kill" she had on very expensive clothing, jewelry and her makeup and hair were flawless. "She was just one very sophisticated lady. If I hadn't been married to the Missus..." he said. She just wanted to ask that they please forgive her in advance as she was hiring some workmen to fix the roof, plumbing and some other things that had suffered from neglect. She was worried about the potential noise it would cause her new neighbors.
They assured her they would be fine with it and Judge's parents told her they were glad someone was moving in. The Judge, not so much, he hated that house and worried that it may cause this woman severe heartache in the future, and it did. Margie had a teen daughter named Nancy. She was a carbon copy of her mother and wore the best and had the best. "She was spoiled, there's no sugar coating that. Why, Margie bought her a shiny new convertible on her 17th birthday. She got good grades and my wife, who befriended Margie said she was a good girl too. Spoiled but good" the Judge said.
Margie was a widow. Evidently her husband had money or she had her own but she did the house proud She fixed every single thing wrong with the house and added some modern things in the kitchen. She had a cook and a maid. They both had living quarters on the 3rd floor. Between the two of them, they also looked after Nancy when Margie was off on a trip somewhere around the world. She took cruises and went to Italy, England and Paris with some other socialites of the day. One day the judge came home from a trip to the Illinois state capitol and found his wife crying hysterically. It seems that the cook was in the kitchen making breakfast for Nancy when the power went out. She had heard a distinct noise from the basement about the same time. She went down and sure enough, there was the burned fuse. She took another from the box and screwed it in. It instantly blew with a visible spark so she figured she better call a repair man. By this time Maid was on the scene wondering why it was still off. Cook explained and told maid to go upstairs and see if Nancy had power in the bathroom where she was getting ready. At this point the judge said "neither Cook nor Maid ever spoke about what they saw when they saw the fate of their charge, spoiled but good Nancy. It seems she took her space heater into the cold bathroom with her when she took her morning bath. She must have got out of the tub and splashed water on the heater. The details never came out but the judge was told by the coroner that it was a horrific sight.
Maid was the one who found Nancy. She was guilt stricken to the point that about a month after Nancy's funeral, she hung herself from a beam on the 3rd floor. Cook found her. "I think thats about the time that Margie became a recluse. We would see Cook out in the car getting supplies and often asked about Margie. Cook told us she kept to herself. Spent alot of time in Nancy's room looking out the window. Sometime during the mid 60's Margie and Cook got a lady who cleaned in the neighborhood to come over once a week and help get the mansion cleaned up as the cobwebs and dust had been too much for Cook to keep up with. The arrangement worked out just fine until the maid fell down the servants staircase while coming down with buckets and other cleaning supplies. In the early 70's Cook died in her bed on the 3rd floor of a heart attack and out of nowhere came Margie's nephew that the judge had never met. He convinced Margie to sell the house and move to a retirement center. He told the judge that she was getting pretty senile as she talked of seeing ghosts and was actually more than ready leave the mansion.
The nephew put the house up for sale. The house had the for sale sign up for over 2 years until Margie died. No one wanted a big old drafty house to heat and cool during the late 70's and early 80's. So Margie's nephew practically gave the house away at an auction. A young couple with 4 children bought the house and worked on it for a few years, they never did finish it or spend a night in it and sold it, once again cheap. The would be restorer's wife told people around town after they sold it that it was haunted. It went through a few more owners, some lived there for a short time, some worked on it a little before selling. Finally the couple before us bought the house and lived there 3 years and moved out 3 years before letting it go to foreclosure. When we bought it, it was an awful neglected mess.
Now that I knew how many people had died in the house and under what circumstances it was no wonder we were experiencing things. The only problem was, after that it escalated. It was like once I knew the history, all bets were off, all hell was about to break loose.
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Yikes.