Subject: Matt Speck, owner of Black Moon Manor in Greenfield, Indiana
Interviewers: Misty Adkins and Amanda Morgan
Date: August 27, 2011
Misty: So, how did you find the house?
Matt: I actually worked for a landscaping company for fifteen years, and I drove by this road, right here, everyday, on my way to work. I saw this house up here everytime I drove by, and I always wanted to do a haunted house attraction. So when I saw it, I was like...everyday I drove by it, it looked like nobody was living there, so I drove up here to check it out one day. The grass was as tall as me, and I realized there was nobody here. I actually physically walked inside the house, and I couldn't believe how the floors were and everything. I just thought, I'm going to find out who owns this...there was no mailbox around, so I had to go to the chamber of commerce to find out who owned it, and found out the guy who owned it actually lived in another state. I actually contacted him, and told him what I was planning to do. He kind of delayed a little bit, and then thought 'Well, I can't use it for anything else, so I'll let you have it for what you want to do.'...and that's how I got ahold of the place.
Misty: What experiences have you had in the house?
Matt: When I first got the place, I didn't know anything about the history of it. So when I went inside the house, there was no electricity, but I had my generator with me. I actually started to work on the house two weeks after I got it. I cut a hole in the wall there for a flow of traffic, you know for the haunted house attraction, and I had the saw I just used sitting right next to me. I was pulling the debris out, and when I was doing that, the saw went all the way across the room and hit the door. I thought there was a raccoon in there. I started looking around the room with a flashlight, trying to see a raccoon, and I didn't see anything. But it just freaked me out a little bit because I didn't know what it was. It had been abandoned for five and a half years. So I actually went upstairs with my flashlight to get my floodlight system, and on the way up, I felt like I got pushed on my left shoulder. I got pushed so hard, I actually fell down some stairs. I ran out of there and wouldn't come back in for like a month and a half. That was my experience. Since then, numerous people have had experiences in there. Then, when I did the haunted house attraction last year, I was actually on the stairs...we have a drapery going by the stairs as you go up...and it got pulled down a little bit. I was stapling it back up, and I heard a voice say "stay out". It was really loud! That creeped me out a little bit, and I wouldn't go back in there for the remainder of the season. We actually had three people quit on us in the month of October, as they were getting creeped out too. I've seen so much stuff going on in this house, I've decided that I'm not going to use it as a haunted attraction anymore. It would almost be kind of disrespectful to the people in there, and I actually have a different location now. Negative provoking is something I will not allow in the house. It's kind of the way I'm giving back to them for disrupting the whole house. But that's kind of what I'm talking about.
Misty: Have you had any really bad experiences? Or anybody else, ever?
Matt: Yeah, Jennifer, my girlfriend, she actually...we actually had a group out here about a year and a half ago. They were big haunted attraction fans...they'd never done an investigation before and they wanted to go in the house and do an investigation because they heard there was some activity going on in there. This was before I didn't allow any negative provoking going on in there. It was new to me, so I didn't know it was a bad thing. So they wanted to go in nonchalantly, and they went to the kitchen room, which was the prep room back in the day, and they talked Jennifer into going in. I didn't want to go in. They finally talked her into going in, because she'd been hearing voices and stuff like me. So she said "Yeah, I'll go in but I'm not asking any questions." She goes in, and they're sitting on the couch in there, which was in the kitchen at the time...and they're kind of liquored up a little bit, and they're doing negative provoking in there. We'd had negative provoking in there before, but they were really getting into it. They were like "F you this, F you that."...instead of attacking them, it reached out for the weakest person who wasn't doing anything, and it got to her. It grabbed her on the back, and she freaked out so bad...she didn't know what to do. She could've run out the door, but she ran all the way across the house to the front door. She said it held onto her all the way she was running. She said it felt like somebody was pushing on her. So she got to the door, and it started scratching...she felt a burning sensationg. She said when she grabbed the door handle, it let go, like it didn't want to go outside with her. I'm sitting out here by the campfire, and I'm hearing all this yelling and screaming, and I'm like "what the hell is going on?" I turn, and she's running out the door to me, and she's climbing me like a tree! She's shaking so bad, and she backs away from me and points at the house, and I kind of look her up and down...and I see blood on the backside of her pants. Something had attacked her and scratched her so bad, she bled through her clothes! So ever since then, I will not allow any negative provoking in the house, because number one, we have to go inside there everyday. Since I've stopped that, we've had one lady get scratched on her neck...but I guarantee she was probably in there doing some negative provoking. I can't babysit every group, like I said, so I don't know if they're doing it or not, but if I do hear it, I'm going to throw people out. So that's why I don't allow any negative provoking.
Misty: Do you know any history on the house? What they used to do, or who used to live here?
Matt: Yes, actually the house was built in 1859 by John Eastes. It was turned into a smallpox hospital in 1892 by Dr. Harvey. Those two were close friends back in the day. When they took it over, it was open for 15-20 years, I'm not real sure. Over 250 people passed away in it, and were buried in the backyard. In 1978, the matriarch of the family passed away here, and when she passed away, it got handed over to another guy in Ohio. He decided to rent it out. When he rented it, a family lived here for eleven years. They're still close friends of mine because I love hearing the history. Their mom actually drank herself to death inside the house, and when she died, they didn't want to live here anymore. So they moved out, and it sat vacant for five and a half years until I drove by and picked it up. So that's the history of the house anyway. I do know they used to have a successful honey farm out here too. So this isn't just a sad place, it was a happy place too. They used to have the biggest fourth of July parties down here, every year. So it's a place of happiness and sadness. I do know there was a man who ran over his son out here...backed over him with a tractor. See where the firepit is? About twenty feet past that, he accidentally backed over his son and killed him. We've had one possession out at this house...and the guy swears up and down that he was looking for his son that he killed with a tractor. So when I heard that, and put the two and two together, it really kind of freaked me out. That's the only case of possession we've had in here. Well, we had one guy pass out in the basement...but he didn't say he was possessed. I don't know what happened there. But that's the history of the house.
Amanda: The last time we were here, you told us there was a cross built on top of the house. Can you tell us a little about that?
Matt: Yeah, actually, the cross was put on, it's about as big as the first part of the house, and they put it on in 1892, to protect the families that were passing away from smallpox and they were burying in the backyard. Kind of a Christian thing, they were big Christians here. It still sits there. If you get on Google Earth, you can actually see it from the sky. The airport is right down the road from us, and they actually use it as a marker. There's actually a bell tower on top of the house too that they put up there for the services they had. When they turned it into a rental, they turned that into a vent, and took the bell down. I really wish I could get ahold of that bell, because that'd be cool to have. But I don't even know if it exists anymore.
Misty: That's pretty much all I have for you.
Amanda: Me too. I think that pretty much summed it all up.
Matt: Another thing I want to tell you is that this property is over 200 acres. It's been in the same family for over 200 years. They've been offered millions of dollars for this land, but they won't sell it. So that's one thing I really respected about the family, when they let me have the opportunity to be here. I definitely want to follow the wishes and respect the family. Even though they let me show pictures, and air the history out here, I definitely want people to respect that they don't want it to be shamed, you know what I mean? It's kind of a cool history, but it's kind of a dark history too. So I respect that.
Amanda: I know, last time we were here, you told us that you were working one day, and a little old lady came up the drive and was telling you more about it?
Matt: The little old lady that came up the drive is the one I got all of this information from. Her name was Rose...she didn't want me to use her last name. I never do. She was about eighty-two years old, and she actually used to stay here when she was about ten years old. So when she came up here, I thought it was somebody that wanted to go through the house...but she was so excited to see that I got the house, because the present owner was talking about tearing it down because there wasn't any use for it anymore. Can't rent it out, people run it down. When she followed me up here, she thought I was going to renovate it, fix it up. I'll keep it fixed up, but just for, you know, so it's not falling down. She gave me the wheelchair. She said, "I thought if you were going to get this place, you might want to know the history of it." She does genealogy, that's her big favorite hobby, and she did it on this house. So she explained to me the history about the wheelchair, and about the lady who passed away in '78. When I looked in that box [that she brought], and I saw pictures of all those dead people...and inside it was a list of everybody who had passed away too. It was really cool, but freaky at the same time, because I had no idea about the history. Just two weeks before that, I had that thing happen to me on the inside, where I got pushed. We became pretty good friends. She definitely doesn't want to be a part of this stuff, but she knows what we're doing here. She's just glad it's not being torn down.
Misty: The path behind the house, if I'm remembering right, is the 'Psycho Path'?
Matt: Yeah. When I got the house, and we still did the haunted attraction last year, and I did the trail, I elected to do it right through the middle of the cemetery. Probably not a good idea, but that was the best way I could think of to get people through the house and out the back. When I did it, I had to get a signature from everybody in the families that were still living in the area here just so I could put that path through there. Kind of a petition. A lot of people were kind of upset with the fact that I was going to do this, but once I told them what I wanted to do...I didn't want to desecrate, or destroy, or dig anything up...they were cool with it and everybody signed it. The outside is just as active as the inside. So keep yourself on everywhere you go. I just found out that she [Nikki Ford] was the one who caught my favorite EVP of this whole place. She told me what room it was in, because I didn't know. The guy says "I know you like talking to women, but you don't like talking to men?" and the kid says "I don't?", and she got "It was the devil", man, I couldn't believe it!
Misty: That was actually Ashlee [Kingery] that caught that. She's no longer with us.
Matt: Oh really? Ok, ok.
Misty: Yes, she's the one who caught that.
Matt: No longer with us? Or no longer with....
Misty: No longer with our group.
Matt: Oh! (laughter)
Misty: Sorry, I meant our group.
Matt: Alright, I was like "oh my god!" Well, that's cool...I was excited about it when she told me what room it came from. I love, love, love hearing this stuff...but I don't like being in there, being touched, pulled on. We did have something follow us down to the camper about three months ago. Three o'clock in the morning, there was knocking on the window down there. I went to look, I thought someone was playing a prank on us and everything, because we had investigators here. I thought Jennifer was on the inside, and I heard the knock again. So I'm like "Jennifer, is that you?" And she was actually behind me saying "No, it wasn't me." We heard it again on the window...it went on for about an hour and a half down there. Knocking on the damn window...so it kinda creeped me out, cause I know that when you come out of this place, they will follow you. I didn't like that idea...I wished I recorded it. So...is that good?
Misty: Yes!
Amanda: Yes, definitely.
Matt: Alright, well, have a great time tonight.
Misty: Thank you very much.
Amanda: Thank you.
Matt Speck and Black Moon Manor have been featured on A&E and The Biography Channel's My Ghost Story. For even more information, go to www.blackmoonmanor.net
To hear the EVP "It was the devil", referenced by Matt Speck in this interview, please visit our "Past Investigations" page under the audio section of the Black Moon Manor investigation on September 17, 2010.
