Sedamsville Rectory

The basement doors at this 1891 Cincinnati rectory still bear scratch marks from dogs clawed during an illegal 1980s fighting ring, and investigators who descend there report growling, barking, and physical scratches appearing on their arms. Ghost Adventures filmed here in 2012 (Season 7, Episode 6), bringing a priest for an exorcism during which owner Tim Brazeal became aggressively ill and was interpreted as experiencing demonic oppression. Father Donald MacLeod, killed by a train in Sedamsville while walking to comfort a sick parishioner, is the named ghost, seen walking near the railroad tracks.

The doors of the basement still have scratch marks from dogs trying to claw their way out. During the 1980s, when the rectory at 639 Steiner Avenue in Cincinnati sat vacant, someone ran an illegal dog fighting operation in the basement. That's not the ghost story. That's just the history. But the sounds people report hearing down there (growling, barking, whimpering) line up uncomfortably well with what happened in that room.

The Sedamsville Rectory was built around 1891 to house priests serving Our Lady of Perpetual Help, a parish organized in 1878 by the German-speaking Catholic community in the Sedamsville neighborhood. The church was dedicated on May 5, 1889. A school followed in 1907 and closed in 1976. The church shut its doors in 1989.

The building's most well-known ghost is Father Donald MacLeod, who wrote "The History of Roman Catholicism in North America" and served the parish in the late 1800s. MacLeod was struck by a train and killed in Sedamsville while walking to comfort a seriously ill woman. Locals and parishioners have reported seeing his ghost walking along the street near the building and by the railroad tracks. Inside the rectory, visitors see a figure in clergy robes.

But Father MacLeod isn't what draws paranormal investigators from across the country to this building. The rectory also has a history of child abuse by a priest (details are murky but multiple sources reference it), and at different times, a man and a child were found dead on the street in front of the building. The child had a noose around its neck. Layer the dog fighting ring on top of that, and you have a building with an unusually concentrated amount of suffering for a 6,000-square-foot structure.

The paranormal activity here is physical. People get scratched. Investigators from the Paranormal Investigators of Milwaukee (PIM) reported dark shapes, pressure on their limbs, voices, and encountering "something soft" on the attic stairs. Objects move on their own. Suitcases. Rocking chairs. Piano keys play with nobody at the keyboard. Doors open and close. When someone brought books into the building during a renovation, the response was what witnesses described as screaming and growling.

Ghost Adventures filmed here in 2012 (Season 7, Episode 6). Zak Bagans and crew investigated with owners Tim Brazeal and Terrie Scott, who were trying to renovate the property. The episode is one of the more intense in the show's run. They brought in a priest named Father Ashcraft to perform an exorcism. During the cleanse, Tim began acting aggressively, became visibly ill, and eventually walked out of the building, telling the priest he didn't want him there. The crew interpreted this as demonic oppression. The episode was voted the #1 Fan Favorite for Travel Channel's Halloween Marathon in 2015.

The rectory has also appeared on SyFy's Haunted Collector and Biography Channel's My Ghost Story. It was featured again on Ghost Adventures: Aftershocks in 2014.

The Midwest Preservation Society began restoring the building in March 2011. The rectory is listed on the National Historic Register. It spans four levels and clocks in at over 6,000 square feet, which is a lot of space for the amount of activity reported. Workers conducting renovations have documented witnessing phenomena firsthand. Eerie mists slide beneath closed doors. Shadows move in empty rooms.

Most haunted buildings have a vibe. The Sedamsville Rectory has a rap sheet. The dog fighting, the abuse allegations, the deaths on the street outside, Father MacLeod's violent death by train. It's not a place where something sad happened once. It's a place where bad things happened repeatedly, over decades, in different forms, to different victims. That pattern is probably why the building attracts the kind of attention it does.