Mormon to Medium

Delving into Darkness - The Tale of the LaLaurie Mansion

• Brad Zeeman / Nannette Wride • Season 2 • Episode 85

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Join Nannette and Brad on the "Mormon to Medium" podcast as they explore the chilling tales of the infamous LaLaurie Mansion in New Orleans. Delve into the horrific story of Madame Delphine LaLaurie.  Discover the dark history and paranormal mysteries of this home that is said to be one of the most haunted places in the US.  

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Nannette:

Welcome to the Mormon to medium podcast, where we'll talk about spirituality, the paranormal religion, and my journey going from Mormon to medium. I'm Nanette Wride. Thanks for listening. Now let's go have some fun. Hey guys, welcome to the Mormon to medium podcast. you're here with Brad and Nan, and we are going to talk about some haunted places, well, a haunted place that we're going to visit while we're in New Orleans.

Brad:

Yeah, if you remember right last week, we said, Hey, we're going to be going to New Orleans. We're going to look up some of the places that are reported to be haunted that we are going to see. And boy, do we have a good one for you today? So Nan, when you think of New Orleans, who are a couple of the people that immediately pop into your mind?

Nannette:

Oh, definitely Marie Laveau.

Brad:

Laveau. Absolutely. The, the, the voodoo queen, right?

Nannette:

Yes, and also, she helped name our dog Voodoo. Because she, you know,

Brad:

she,

Nannette:

has a scary look and Voodoo has one eye that's kind of off. So we called her Voodoo because we had just gotten back from New Orleans. Who

Brad:

That is true. So everyone thinks of Marie Laveau but would it surprise you if i told you that very sinister. I

Nannette:

I was going to say Louis Armstrong, but no,

Brad:

Armstrong, but no. Yeah, not Louis Armstrong. There is a darkness that emanates around Royal Street and anyone who has been to the French Quarter and taken a ghost tour has been able to experience, well, at least from the outside, the infamous Lalaurie Mansion. Yeah. So

Nannette:

Mansion. Now,

Brad:

No. Now, before we started looking into this, had you ever heard of Delphine LaLaurie?

Nannette:

Delphine LaLaurie?

Brad:

So most people have not heard of Madame Delphine, Lala Ri, unless they've been to No Orleans, or unless they watched the series, American Horror Story, that yes, in the season of the coven

Nannette:

LaLaurie

Brad:

LaLaurie is essentially resurrected into the current timeframe. And we learn about her

Nannette:

season. Yes, and

Brad:

Yes. And. The reason we thought it was all just this character for the writing is because it was so horrible, the things that she was reported to have done. There's a whole story here and we are going to unfold this entire story of the Madame Delphine. LaLaurie. Tom, Tom,

Nannette:

Dun, dun,

Brad:

The LaLaurie Mansion is said to be one of the most haunted places in all of the United States.

Nannette:

Seriously, the All of the us.

Brad:

the U. S.? Yes. People have reported seeing figures walking through the building when there is no one there from the outside in the windows, they have reported feeling sick as they walk past the place. During the middle of the day, it is a hotbed for paranormal activity. And the crazy thing about that is they don't let people into this place. It's been privately owned and operated and people are not allowed to go in. They don't do ghost tours. They don't do all those things. Apparently, um, Jack Osborne had a TV show where he was allowed to go in there and I haven't watched that. We should probably look that up and watch that show and see how it went down. but

Nannette:

Ozzy Osbourne's kid? Yes. Oh.

Brad:

So yeah, the Prince of Darkness, his kid.

Nannette:

Okay, okay.

Brad:

So he was able to go in there on a TV show and do some, some ghost hunting. Um, but it's been owned by several people since the LaLauries and the catastrophe that happened in New Orleans, April 10th of

Nannette:

have owned this place after all of this happened, they haven't been successful at being at this place, have they?

Brad:

No, for whatever reason, there's a lot of churn, right? So right after this, and we'll get into what happened, but it's had several different owners and several different functions. So it was a furniture factory at one point and uh, reportedly the furniture would have urine on it or blood on it before they could ship it out. It was an all girls school at one

Nannette:

What? Yes.

Brad:

um, that didn't last long. It has been a private residence In fact, the most famous owner of it was none other than actor Nicholas Cage.

Nannette:

Oh, and he lost that too.

Brad:

Yes, he did. So it didn't work out for Cage however, he does still have the giant pyramid in St. Louis No. 1 Cemetery, which is where the creme de la creme of everyone who's everyone gets to be buried in New Orleans,

Nannette:

remember when we were visiting there, we did take a picture of his crypt.

Brad:

We did, and you know what? I'm sure that we'll see it again when we go back.

Nannette:

Exactly.

Brad:

know actually when he bought it, it was because he wanted to write the great American horror novel.

Nannette:

he

Brad:

Yeah, he thought, Oh, I'm going to be like Dean Koontz or Stephen King. I'm going to write this amazing novel. And, thought that that's where he would get his inspiration. I think so. And apparently,

Nannette:

Apparently ghosts can't get past egos.

Brad:

Or apparently actors don't write well.

Nannette:

Especially when they're the star. I don't know. Who knows?

Brad:

Who

Nannette:

I just think it's interesting like, there's something up.

Brad:

But let's talk about what happened.

Nannette:

Okay. Pause though. It really feels like that house doesn't want anybody there and it's for sale right now. That

Brad:

true. It does feel like no one's supposed to be in it and it is up for sale right now. You can actually look up on the real estate websites and see pictures of the inside of the house. But, um, apparently their current owners have said they haven't experienced any paranormal activity.

Nannette:

I'm not buying that. I'm not

Brad:

I am not either

Nannette:

They need to sell it.

Brad:

they do. And it's been notorious for years as having that activity,

Nannette:

yeah. It's too bad. We don't know somebody that could balance that house.

Brad:

right? You should truly give them a

Nannette:

I might need to call the real estate agent

Brad:

So Marie Delphine McCarty.

Nannette:

Delphine McCarty

Brad:

Was born March 19th, 1787 to a wealthy family in New Orleans. These were some of the original settlers and they held property. They ran plantations, they owned slaves at the time, and they just were that old money of New Orleans. So Delphine grew up in a family that was well to do. They loved to throw big parties. Her mother was known to be just an amazing hostess who just made sure everything was taken care of and everything was perfect. Anytime she had a party, it said that she was a beautiful and charming young lady. And at the ripe old age of 14, she ended up getting married to her first

Nannette:

husband. Gross. Yep. 14

Brad:

Super young,

Nannette:

a Joseph Smith move it.

Brad:

It kind of is, especially, especially because her husband was a 35 year old widower named Ramon Lopez, y Angelo de Candelaria. Now, Ramon was an officer of the Spanish crown, so the territory was run by the Spanish, and he was actually second in command to the Louisiana governor. He was a big wig. there was some power there so he had recently lost his wife on the journey from Spain to Louisiana, where he was assigned by the crown. And once he got there, you know, he jumped right into things and started going to parties because obviously if you're a rich plantation owner, you're going to invite the politicians to come to your plantation,

Nannette:

right?

Brad:

So he goes to the parties and at some point, somehow he ends up Meeting Delphine and that's all it took. They, uh, apparently fell in love or at least in lust because they were married

Nannette:

In a

Brad:

private ceremony on June 11th, 1800.

Nannette:

1800,

Brad:

The kicker to this is Ramon had asked the Spanish crown for permission. To marry Delphine. Apparently that was custom with their officials. If they were going to marry somebody who was one of the locals in an area that they ran. Yeah, they had to get permission. The crown said, no, he did it anyway. And it caused some problems. Now, the funny thing is a lot of officials just bypass that they wouldn't request permission or say anything they would just say, Just get married. Um, rumor has it that there was another guy who essentially wanted his position and was trying to set him up, but that's a different story. We're not going to get into that. Um, what happened next is five years later, Ramon not only made Delphine a mother, But a widow.

Nannette:

So he died, gave her a baby, and a widow at the same time.

Brad:

So she ended up getting pregnant. They had left New Orleans because he got in trouble. They went to Havana where she stayed while he went to Spain. When he came back, his boat ended up hitting a sandbar off the shores of Havana and he was killed.

Nannette:

so Delphine couldn't have killed him.

Brad:

she didn't, no, no, no, she didn't kill him. She had nothing to do with that. And that was on January 11th, 1805. Now, right around that same time, she gave birth to their daughter. And here's an interesting thing. She named the daughter after Ramon's first wife who was killed.

Nannette:

was killed.

Brad:

Yeah. Right.

Nannette:

you wouldn't. How do you know

Brad:

So that's husband number one. Older man, she's 14. He's 35. He ends up making her a widow. She's still just a kid. Right. Um,

Nannette:

19. Yeah. When he dies.

Brad:

yep. The next one, because she gets married again, right? So let's talk about husband number two. Now on Delphine's 20th birthday, march 19th, 1807, and just a few weeks after her mother had died, she married a Frenchman, and a widower again, named Jean Paul Blanc.

Nannette:

Blanc. Okay. Is she after the widowers? I'm just wondering.

Brad:

almost makes you wonder that, or were the widowers after her, because she was a young lady from an affluent family.

Nannette:

Okay. But she's, she has kids now. So

Brad:

She has, she does have a kid at this point, but the man who married her. came into the area with a bit of an agenda. So he was known to be a ruthless businessman. He'd been very active in the slave trade, as well as in politics. Uh, when they shut down the slave trade, he smuggled slaves in anyway.

Nannette:

So he's dirty. He's

Brad:

a little bit dirty. He was actually a very close associate to the pirate brothers. Jean and Pierre Lafitte,

Nannette:

Lafitte.

Brad:

the Lafitte. Um, so he had these close ties to the pirates. Now, anyone who is a pirate here, well, we look back at that and there's, there's been all of these, you know, fun stories about them and you give this kind of glamorous, but they were dirty. They, uh, they had an agenda. They were ruthless and cruel and were. In it for themselves, right? So I imagine, and I don't have the facts to back this up, but I imagine he was very similar to that. So I would think that he saw this young woman who was from a rich family and went, aha, I can use this.

Nannette:

But New Orleans isn't like a teeny tiny town. Actually,

Brad:

it was still pretty small at the time. It wasn't huge, but it did have. You know, it's definite class systems and you had some some changes that had taken place. So I didn't express this and and look, this is not a history podcast, right? I'm not a historian by any means. I'm not going to get all this right. But in the time that Delphine went to Havana. And came back, the Louisiana purchase had taken place and that whole area had been sold to the Americas.

Nannette:

that was with Napoleon,

Brad:

yes. And so now when she goes back, she's like, oh, so the Americans own this now and we're now Americans.

Nannette:

Oh, confusing.

Brad:

Right. So, so it, it. A lot of things took place that, you know, changes and whatnot. Now I had mentioned that just a few weeks prior to her getting married, her mother had died. Her mother actually left her a big plantation with 52 slaves with livestock, farm equipment, everything that goes with it, right?

Nannette:

you imagine being in charge of taking care of that many? People, people,

Brad:

That's a lot of

Nannette:

that would be a huge, um, responsibility.

Brad:

Yeah, so not only did she inherit that from her mother, but her father actually as a wedding gift to the two gave them an additional plantation and another 26 slaves. So, she now has this large, um, property holding and, income that's coming in to support the two of them, in addition to all of the other business dealings that her husband has going on. by 1815. They have five children. So she's just given birth, you know, year after year. So they got married in 1807 by 1815. They had five kiddos. and then crazy things started happening, right? So the Americas got into a war with England, right? And there was a famous battle, the battle of new Orleans, which John Blanc, her husband. Helped get the Pirates involved in and they won this big battle the Battle of New Orleans In part because the Pirates helped the Americas win. Well about a year after that battle though Jean Blanc passed away and Delphine is now 28 years old and she is a widow yet again twice over With six children. It doesn't say I wasn't able to find out how he died

Nannette:

look, here's

Brad:

Well, look, here's the thing when a pirate tear mysteriously dies, there's probably not a lot of questions, right? Like, okay, he probably had a knife in his back. Who knows? But I don't imagine there was a lot of questions about. Yeah. Okay. There he goes. The sad thing is when he died, it was found out that He was deep in debt and Delphine ended up having to sell off most of his property and some of her property to make up for the debts that he owed.

Nannette:

Oh, what a jerk.

Brad:

Right now.

Nannette:

Seriously, that'd be devastating.

Brad:

Now this is also about the time when we first hear about Delphine potentially being cruel to the enslaved people. Under her control. Uh, there are letters that talk about it. And one of the things that is said during this time is that some of Jean Blanc's slaves that she was able to retain ended up dying. It says that. Eight of the enslaved people that she now owned died in a span of about five years, which is unusual, um, because there are rules and codes at the time, even that say, Hey, you have to have a certain humane way of treating these enslaved people. Now, it was more of a wink, wink type of law, but they still were looked down upon. If too many of their slaves were enslaved. Died, right? And so this brought some, uh, raised eyebrows and especially since most of them who died were women or children.

Nannette:

It makes me, it makes me wonder because women and children, they don't really work as hard as the men and they take more. So it makes you wonder if, if it just wasn't convenient for her to have them. And so she mistreated them.

Brad:

Well, or were they working in the house and just displeased her and so

Nannette:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and she had to have been under an immense amount of stress, having all of those slaves and all the debt and everything she had to take care of. She probably was losing her mind. And a widow double. I don't, I don't see how she couldn't be losing her mind.

Brad:

but I don't know how much of those marriages were like marriages of love. They seem like very much more marriages of convenience, especially with that huge age difference. So I don't honestly. After knowing the atrocities that she enacted on these people, I don't want to make any excuses for her. She's just a horrible, horrible

Nannette:

she is a horrible person, but I'm trying to figure out when she started becoming horrible because it wasn't when she was 14. Like something

Brad:

or was it? Well, it may have been when she was younger because it is purported that her uncle's estate was notorious for Extreme violence toward their slaves. In fact, her parents had been involved in a very large slave uprising where they revolted I, I can't see how anyone would

Nannette:

I can't see how anyone would want to marry that then either. So I don't know. It's

Brad:

So I don't know. It's just

Nannette:

know, she was wealthy. And so here she is.

Brad:

Available people were like, uh, in fact, the next one went, uh,

Nannette:

A husband named, which is where, gets her

Brad:

Right. And actually I was talking about husband number three because husband number three was a Frenchman named Louis LaLaurie, which is where Miss McCarty gets her LaLaurie name that we all know and hear and it curdles our blood.

Nannette:

And he was the really bad one though.

Brad:

Was he really bad? Let's talk about

Nannette:

I'm thinking. So,

Brad:

Dr. Louis Lalaurie came into the picture in 1825. Dr. Lalaurie studied dentistry in France.

Nannette:

Okay. In those years, they like just pulled teeth.

Brad:

Yeah, pretty much like, Hey, you know what you study in dentistry, you can do whatever else, whatever. So, and that's what he did. He had it in his mind that he was going to destroy all the hunches. So he was going to take the hunchbacks and straighten them out.

Nannette:

Oh no. That would be horrible.

Brad:

And so. He decided, you know what, I'm a dentist here, but I'm going to go to the Americas and I am going to work on bones.

Nannette:

teeth or bones, right?

Brad:

Yeah, essentially. So that is what he was known for is straightening people's backs. Now in those times, it wasn't like, okay, we're going to just lay you on the table and pop your back and now you're going to go get a massage. It was, we're going to put you in this machine. That essentially looks like the rack from the inquisition and they would stretch people on it and they would

Nannette:

Okay, that's horrific. Torture.

Brad:

Essentially, it's torture.

Nannette:

torture.

Brad:

And, uh, it was said that, you know, after three years, they could be completely healed of doing these torturous activities day after day after day. Yeah. Yeah. So the way that LaLaurie ends up meeting Delphine is Delphine actually has a daughter who needs her back straightened. Okay. She lost me there. You never hurt your kids. What a sack. Seriously? Right? So LaLaurie is an older woman. She's 38, two dead husbands, five children. Lots of wealth. And some people speculate that a lot of different things may have happened. You know, LaLaurie came in, ended up meeting this, this woman who threw parties and was glamorous and they ended up having a thing, right? He was,

Nannette:

wasn't she a cougar too?

Brad:

she would have definitely been a cougar because he was only 25. So. There was a flip flop, essentially, in that power dynamic. Now, she was the older one in the relationship, but there was a lot of speculation, like I said, that, you know, it was just a, thing that wasn't supposed to happen, because it is said that she actually ended up getting

Nannette:

out of wedlock. Right.

Brad:

Which was one of those things in society that was very frowned upon at the time.

Nannette:

in society that was very ground upon at

Brad:

lot of kids, a lot of kids, and

Nannette:

ended up getting

Brad:

right? After she became pregnant, they ended up getting married at the St. Louis cathedral. And it said that they actually rolled back the marriage date, six months to cover up getting pregnant at a wedlock.

Nannette:

I have a question, I have a question, I have a question. the St. Louis Cathedral one of the other haunted places we're going to?

Brad:

places we're going to? Um, it very well could be. Did you do the research on St. Louis

Nannette:

We were listening to it, yes, yeah, and it's the one that's in the square.

Brad:

I'll be damned. Well, so here's the thing. All these

Nannette:

That just, that just clicked in my head and I'm like, oh my gosh.

Brad:

The interesting thing there Nan is the St. Louis Cathedral is just down the street from the home that Madame Delphine Purchased on Royal and Hospital Street, which would become the infamous Haunted LaLaurie Mansion. All of you are wondering what happened? What made this mansion haunted? Where does this come in? How does this story culminate? Right?

Nannette:

Yeah, besides the crazy,

Brad:

Well, let's talk about that. On a fateful day, April 10th, 1834, a fire broke out inside the home of LaLaurie and at the time her estranged husband, because they had been having some issues. And in fact, she had petitioned the courts for separation, saying that, Dr. LaLaurie treated her in such a manner as to render their living together insupportable. She also claimed that LaLaurie had beaten her in front of witnesses.

Nannette:

sounds like the unhinged one then, huh?

Brad:

Perhaps, but I think they are definitely both of them in it together. Because, On that April day, 1834, he was at the mansion when the fire started.

Nannette:

Now,

Brad:

When the fire started, this is a new town and they didn't have a fire department. So all the neighbors would come and try and help put out the fire the best they could because they didn't want it to spread throughout the city, right?

Nannette:

Yeah, because the houses are close,

Brad:

houses are close now. It started in the kitchen area, which was separate from the main house, and they were worried it was going to spread. So when neighbors started coming in, Madam LaLaurie started directing people. Okay, I need you to go in here and get this and get this. She wanted her paintings. She wanted her fine china. She wanted her silver. She wanted all of these valuable possessions. Now, Her neighbor happened to be a judge, uh, jock Francois can knows, I believe is how you would pronounce that. I don't know. I don't speak French. I'm guessing right. All I can do is like that. Oh,

Nannette:

Sounds French to me.

Brad:

right. So the judge gets there and he's like, um,

Nannette:

Hey,

Brad:

you've got slaves. Where are the slaves? We need to get them out of the house and they're like, no, no, no, no. Don't worry about that. Go get our valuables. There's all these things over here that are valuable to us. We need you to get those. Well, the judge hits up Dr. LaLaurie, who happened to be there. He says, Hey, dude, we gotta get your slaves out, right? Well, it's reported that LaLaurie And there's a quote, responded, there are those who would be better employed if they would attend to their own affairs instead of officiously intermeddling with the concerns of other people. Now say that in a smug French accent.

Nannette:

That's, that's pretty low.

Brad:

It's pretty low because what happens when they go in anyway, they're like, Hey, we're going to go in and save these people because we know they're in there. So they start kicking in doors. Well, Upstairs, they kick in a door because they hear screams because people know there's smoke and they're going to die. They kick in the door and What they find is nothing less than horrific, a macabre chamber of horror. There's no other way to describe it, is essentially a torture chamber.

Nannette:

pretty low. Yeah.

Brad:

There are men and women inside that room, hanging from chains, wrapped in chains. In fact, this is where we start hearing all kinds of different rumors and. Different. Tellings We don't really know all of the facts, but there are a lot of different stories. Some people say that when they went into this room, that people Had bones that were broken and reset in unnatural angles. That there were people who were absolutely mutilated and cut open. That intestines were pulled out and wrapped around people. That, parts of skulls had been cut off people and their brains were exposed.

Nannette:

So you're saying this doctor practiced medicine.

Brad:

He may have practiced on these people, but there are also, there definitely sounds like they were, but there were also stories Nan that said that these people were just very malnourished and wrapped in heavy chains that they could barely walk. But there were reports that they were in such bad shape that they basically had to be drug out of there. The fire was said to be started by a 14 year old kitchen girl who was a slave who was attached to a 25 25 foot chain and couldn't go any farther. Apparently living with the LaLaurie's was so horrible she would rather start the place on fire and die.

Nannette:

so sad.

Brad:

Very sad and atrocious. It's horrible. No matter how you look at it,

Nannette:

Those poor people.

Brad:

they were absolutely tortured.

Nannette:

horrific.

Brad:

To the point where they probably would have preferred death and there were a couple of them who died even after being saved because they were in such a horrible condition here's something that puts it into perspective, Nann. When these people started getting brought out of the home, the people who were there to put out the fire became enraged. They were absolutely incensed and the mob mentality came out and they started destroying things. They were out for blood. Madame LaLaurie and Dr. LaLaurie ended up getting into a carriage and escaping, driving through the crowd And they

Nannette:

they escaped,

Brad:

escaped. You would hope that Someone who was involved in this would actually have some sort of retribution, right? Like, the legal system would take them and throw them in chains the way they threw other people.

Nannette:

But no,

Brad:

This is not one of those happy stories.

Nannette:

right? They took off to Paris,

Brad:

Yes. They escape to Paris, where LaLaurie, Ended up dying of a unknown disease. I'm guessing she was just rotten from the inside

Nannette:

inside out. Right.

Brad:

Exactly. But

Nannette:

horrible

Brad:

horrible atrocities were never paid for. And that is why it's still said the mansion is haunted by the ghosts of those who died in there and countless numbers that no one will ever know. No one really knows the extent of the atrocities that took place.

Nannette:

in that home. Now, I have two things to tell you, though. I looked up that the mansion is for sale for nine million dollars right now, but its original asking price was 10. 5. So it's losing, they're going down on the amount. So I think that that's interesting. Additionally, um, the very first time we heard this story, um, um, I have had a little girl that keeps coming to me and reaching out for me. Um, and every time we talk about the story, she pops up. So I think, I think the little girl that was in the kitchen that burned the place down

Brad:

is

Nannette:

the one showing up.

Brad:

Really? Yeah. So you think, okay, help me understand how that works. I think that's a lot right now.

Nannette:

Well, if a soul is trapped in an area, What I, what I think is interesting is when we sat down to do the podcast tonight, it popped into my head and this was not my idea. It popped into my head to reach out to the real estate agent and, and offer, um, to balance the house so it could be sold, but also to help the souls cross that wanted to. And that would, that would answer why I've got this little girl that keeps following me around. Um, I think that she's, she's asking for help and let's be clear here. We are not, um, the type of psychic medium people that are going to go out and want to get scared. We're there to help and to learn, um, and to tell the story of the area that it's been. So, um, but it's all about love and bringing peace to a place. So we'll see, I guess I'll reach out to the real estate agent. I'm a really good minder. So I'll do that and we'll see what happens. I think spirit can make a lot of things happen,

Brad:

things happen. What's going to be amazing though is to actually go to the place where these things happen and see what that feels like. And we're going to do exactly that. And once we're done there, we'll make sure we let everybody know

Nannette:

You mean we'll return and

Brad:

we'll return and report. This is going to be one of the haunted places that we get to experience in new Orleans and we'll share. All of the details and hopefully we can get some up close personal photos that we can share on all of the social media platforms.

Nannette:

Definitely.

Brad:

In fact, if you haven't already, please join us on Instagram and Facebook. Um, make sure that you like and follow the show and tell your friends all about it. Um,

Nannette:

Yeah. Help us grow and spread the word. Um, and if you are interested in having an energy balance or having a psychic medium reading, um, the links are in the show notes and also on our social media pages, or you can go to our website, Zen energy sage. com

Brad:

Yep. Thank you so much. We're so glad you joined us and we'll see you

Nannette:

on the other side of the veil.

People on this episode

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Nannette Wride

Host
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Brad Zeeman

Co-host