Ellerslie, Georgia Haunting
Way Of The Ray
Posted on Tue, Apr. 23, 2002
Harris County home may be haunted
TV program examines family's experiences
BY HARRY FRANKLIN
State Editor
ELLERSLIE, Ga. - Lisa Wyrick sat quietly in the back yard of her home on
a Saturday afternoon two weeks ago, her eyes following her oldest
daughter, Heidi, 16, as she was being filmed for a two-hour documentary
program on TV's Discovery Channel.
Heidi walked slowly from the house to a swing hanging from a high tree
limb, re-creating a 1988 incident where the then 3-year-old met a
"stranger" who pushed her in the swing and talked to her on occasion
shortly after the Wyrick family moved into the house off Swint Loop.
Heidi and other family members would meet this figure and others -- they
believe them to be demons, spirits or ghosts -- repeatedly over the next
few years. And it's caused them no end of concern.
When Heidi was 6 1/2, she awoke one night with three claw marks down the
side of her cheek. About a year later, her father Andy awoke with deep,
bleeding scratch marks on his back and side from wounds they believe
were inflicted by demons. And when Heidi's sister, Jordan, was a month
old, Lisa Wyrick said, a niece who was baby-sitting checked on Jordan
and discovered a ribbon with eight knots tied tightly about her neck.
She cut the ribbon -- the baby was all right.
Their story was told in short version on "Unsolved Mysteries" in 1994.
The new, longer documentary will be produced from 10 days of filming in
January and five additional days of filming concluded Sunday by a crew
from New Dominion Pictures. The film could air this summer or in the
fall.
When 3-year-old Heidi first told her parents about a stranger swinging
her in the back yard, "we thought somebody was trying to kidnap her,"
Lisa Wyrick said. "We decided it was her imagination."
They later learned from neighbors that Heidi had described perfectly a
man named James Gordy, who had lived in the neighborhood but died years
earlier.
Later there were alleged visitations by a figure named Con and others. A
few years ago, a parapsychologist from the University of Georgia
identified eight spirits at the Wyrick home.
Heidi Wyrick, now a 10th-grader at Harris County High School, remembers
first seeing the spirit of James Gordy "outside at the chimney when I
was almost 4. I remember when he told me there was money buried under a
pecan tree."
Heidi doesn't particularly enjoy talking about her experiences with
spirits. Lisa Wyrick says Heidi has been harassed by other students, who
would sing the "Ghostbusters" theme when their school bus passed her and
call her Ghost Girl.
But Heidi has other reasons she would like to forget. "She had an
experience of a pillow being put over her to suffocate her" during one
episode, Lisa Wyrick said.
Months ago while riding north on the Manchester Expressway, Heidi said
she saw "a big creature , maybe 8 feet tall, black and gray with wings,
but not angel wings. It swooped down and landed on a building near the
highway. I didn't see its face. It took its wing and covered its face."
No one else in the car saw it.
"We have some really bad spirits here," said Lisa Wyrick, an employee in
the Harris County tax assessor's office, who has also seen spirits. "But
there are angels, too. The Bible says the devil will walk to and from
across the Earth looking for someone to devour. I'm not out to make a
believer out of anybody. But we have lived this for 14 years."
The Wyrick family has attended New Hope Revival Center, a Holiness
church in Columbus, for more than a year. The church's pastor, the Rev.
Steven L. Shelley, said the Wyrick experience is "an unusual situation,"
but that he has seen demonic visitations and attacks many times during
his travels to 56 countries.
"The reason I believe this is a classic case of demonic attack is that
it started very innocently. These spirits come in as familiar spirits in
an easy way, a gentle way... . she was even lured to play with them and
carry on conversation. If we entertain these demon spirits, they can
transform themselves to almost appear as angels of light or what some
people call ghosts."
Lisa Wyrick said, despite thoughts of leaving, "I'm determined to stay.
I'm not going to let it get the best of me. I'm very close to the Lord.
He's got us through so far and he will get us through the rest of the
way."
Shelley said fleeing might not end the problem. "I believe standing
their ground and trying to get deliverance was the right thing," he
said. Shelley said the family's episodes with demons have decreased
greatly since they began attending New Hope.
"We have had several times of prayer with them, anointing them with oil
and praying for them," he said, "times of fasting and prayer as a
corporate body for deliverance for them."Looking back on her life,
Heidi, who will narrate part of the documentary, said, "I feel as though
all that's happened has made me a stronger person by drawing me close to
my family and to God."
