The Grumpy Economist: The Centrahoma Poltergeist (Part 2)

This apparently is the photo mentioned in the June 7, 1995 newspaper article. The child was photographed by her mother, Twyla Bell Eller, in Centrahoma, Oklahoma. Click on photo for a magnified view.

This article presents the information published in the second part of "Centrahoma Story Filmed" from the June 7, 1995 issue of the Coalgate Record-Register with nothing changed or redacted. The setting for the mysterious events is the home of Bill and Maxine McWethy with strange occurrences also taking place in the vicinity. While reading this article, I was reminded of a passage in The Bell Witch of Middle Tennessee (1930) by Harriet Parks Miller — one of several books offering eyewitness testimonials about the 19th Century 'Bell Witch' 'talking poltergeist' case. A quotation found in Miller's report shows an understanding of the "invisible agency of tangible action" that wasn't so precisely explained in other published accounts of the Bell family's phenomenal experiences: "You know, as I've said before, I am anything and everything, here, there and everywhere. Just now I'm the spirit of an early emigrant . . ."

Centrahoma Story Filmed

by Wanda Utterback

Part two of a series about paranormal activities which have been occurring since 1990 at the home of Bill and Maxine McWethy in Centrahoma. The story was filmed in May by LMNO Productions in Los Angeles and will air this summer or fall on an ABC special tentatively named "Put to the Test."

This is what Maxine and her daughter, Twyla, have to say about "Michael," who parapsychologist Barry Taff identified during his visit to Centrahoma as a poltergeist.

According to Twyla, "Michael" has furnished two different stories as to who—or what—he is. "His first story was about being an alien, that he was from Saturn and had gotten left here. Then he changed his story and said he was a boy. He said he was born on August 8 and that he was eight years old when he died in 1951. That meant he was born in 1943 and that he's 51 now.

"But he fibs so much—sometimes he hints around that he's from Saturn, and then sometimes he talks about his mother and that he's a ghost—that she killed him. When he's in that mode, he says he was deformed and that she killed him because she was ashamed of him." A cellar located a couple of miles from the McWethy house is where he has told Twyla and Maxine he played as a child, they said. Maxine said she asked him one time what he was, and he told her "I'm your imagination."

"Michael" stays with Twyla about 85 percent of the time, Twyla said. Asked how she felt about that, she said, "at first, it scared me to death, but I'm not scared anymore—he hasn't killed me yet." After knocking on the table with her knuckles, she continued. "It seemed like he picked on me at first, but he doesn't do that as much now." He does, however, still throw rocks and pennies, table scraps, tomatoes, "whatever is handy for him to get hold of, and he throws it across the room," Maxine stated. "Sometimes nothing will happen for a week, then things will happen all day long."

In addition to being rather mischievous, Twyla and Maxine claim that "Michael" protects them. Like the time, Twyla said, he scared a snake away from her feet when she was taking a walk. And the time he yelled "Fire! Fire!" when an electric heater caught her bedroom on fire.

Apparently, "Michael" also has periodic twinges of hunger since he's added things like pork chops to Maxine's grocery list. One or two chops always come up missing after they're cooked, she said. "Then there was the time he had us go to town to get sauerkraut. After I put it in the pot, I distinctly saw two fingers reach into the pot. It was just two long fingers, but I saw them. Then he told me I wasn't supposed to have seen it." Small bites have mysteriously been taken out of hamburger patties, Twyla said.

"Michael" has also been known, at least on one occasion, to indulge in alcoholic beverages. "One guy brought some beer out here and two of the beers came up missing," Maxine explained. It wasn't long, she said, before "Michael" told them to "please put me to bed. I'm drunk." (I failed to ask them if they did.)

Maxine says she has felt "Michael's" hands and that they feel like "real old hands with long fingers." Taff said although he had seen other cases where people claim to feel a physical body, or part of a body, he had no explanation.

Maxine also says "Michael" has told her things about her childhood and that he said he was with her and Bill when they were involved in a car accident seven or eight years ago. They started hearing the voice in December, 1990, or January, 1991.

Both Maxine and Twyla claim there are "others"—like Sarah, Ricky and Nicky the twins, Grandma and Grandpa, Child Killer, E. T., Trouble and Rachel. All have different voices, they said, that come from different heights. "Like Leader is big and has a growl, but he's not around anymore," Twyla said, "and Rachel said she was an old woman that lived down the street. Sarah is the shy one."

E. T. was blamed for taking a sack of bird gravel and writing his name in big scrawly letters in the hallway. Grandma and Grandpa, on the other hand, were credited with cleaning Twyla's room one day while she and Maxine were gone. "When we came back, one of them said 'we done something to your room,'" Twyla said as she described how "clothes were piled up, the bed wasn't made, and it was just a big mess." She said when she looked in the room, the clothes had been folded, everything had been put away, and the bed was perfectly made, "you know, like old people do them—with the sheets pulled tight and tucked in. They said Grandma and Grandpa did it."

Maxine and Twyla also claim they and other people have seen and heard children in the yard. One, they say (Sarah), is a small girl with blonde hair and wears what looks like a hospital gown.

"I was talking to her one day," said Maxine, "and I asked her if she wanted to have her picture taken with Desiree (Twyla's daughter), and she said yes." Maxine then showed a picture of Desiree standing in front of the apartment behind the house. In the window is what appears to be a child with blonde hair which Maxine and Twyla believe is Sarah.

Maxine admits that all the strange happenings over the past five years "kinda gets to me once in awhile." She's glad, though, she said, that their story is being told "so people will know it's not just us that see and hear all this stuff. It's other people, too."

Twyla, now 23, married Steve Eller, a police officer, in 1994. She met him when he came to the house out of curiosity. Her daughter Desiree is now seven. She also has a 20-month-old daughter, Megan.

How does she feel about the TV special? "I'm glad for Mom," she said. "I'm doing it most because she wants it and wants people to know it's for real—that other people besides just the family are seeing it and hearing it."

Asked what she thinks will happen after the special airs, she replied, "I think people will forget about it in a short time."

There is mentioned a predilection for whiskey among some of the haunting entities described in the memoirs of Richard Williams Bell—"Our Family Trouble"—as published in An Authenticated History of the Bell Witch (1894) by M. V. Ingram. While the nickname for the predominant haunting entity in the Centrahoma case is 'Michael,' the nickname for the similar entity in the earlier Bell case was 'Kate.' Ingram found the name to have been inspired by Mrs. Kate Batts, "a noted lady in that community, remarkable for her eccentricities . . . The superstitious believed that she was a witch . . ."

The Witch Family—Blackdog, Mathematics, Cypocryphy, and Jerusalem.

The next development was the introduction of four characters, assuming the above names, purporting to be a witch family, each one acting a part, making night hideous in their high carnivals, using the most offensive language and uttering vile threats. Up to this time the strange visitor had spoken in the same soft delicate voice, except when personating some individual. Now there were four distinct voices. Blackdog assumed to be the head of the family, and spoke in a harsh feminine tone. The voices of Mathematics and Cypocryphy were different, but both of a more delicate feminine tone. Jerusalem spoke like a boy. These exhibitions were opened like a drunken carousal, and became perfect pandemoniums, frightful to the extreme, from which there was no escape. Father would most gladly have abandoned home and everything and fled with his family to some far away scene to have escaped this intolerable persecution, but there was no hope, no escape. The awful thing had sworn vengeance, and for what cause it never named, nor could any one ever surmise. Nevertheless, when the question of moving was discussed, it declared it would follow “Old Jack” to the remotest part of the earth, and father believed it. The family was frightened into consternation, apprehending that a terrible crisis was rapidly approaching. Many of our neighbors were frightened away, fearing they would become involved in a tragic termination. Others, however, drew nearer, and never forsook us in this most trying ordeal. James Johnson and his two sons, John and Calvin, the Gunn families, the Forts, Gooch, William Porter, Frank Miles, Jerry Batts, Major Bartlett, Squire Byrns and Major Picketing were faithful and unremitting in their sympathy, and attentions, and consolations, making many sacrifices for our comfort, and not a night passed that four or more were not present to engage the witch in conversation, and relieve father of the necessary attention to strangers, giving him much rest. These demoniac councils were introduced by singing songs of every character, followed by quarreling with each other, employing obscene language and blasphemous oaths, making a noise like a lot of drunken men fighting. At this stage of the proceedings Blackdog would appear as peacemaker, denouncing the others with vehemence and scurrility, uttering bitter curses and threats of murder unless the belligerents should desist and behave themselves, and sometimes would apparently thrash Jerusalem unmercifully for disobeying orders. These carousals were ended only by the command of Blackdog, professedly sending the family away on different errands of deviltry, one or two remaining to keep up the usual disturbance in different rooms at the same time. On one occasion all four appeared almost beastly drunk, talking in a maudlin sentimental strain, fuming the house with the scent of whiskey. Blackdog said they got the whiskey at John Gardner’s still house, which was some four miles distant. At other times the unity appeared more civil, and would treat our company to some delightful singing, a regular concert of rich feminine voices, modulated to the sweetest cadence and intonation, singing any hymn called for with solemnity and wonderful effect. The carousals did not continue long, much to the gratification of the family and friends, and our serious apprehensions were relieved. These concerts were agreeable closing exercises of this series of meetings, and after they were suspended the four demons or unity never, apparently, met again. It was plain old Kate from that on who assumed all characters, good or bad, sometimes very pious and then extremely wicked.