Episode #9: Haunted Hobby: Paranormal Investigation with Kristy Sumner
In this episode on the HobbyScool podcast, I chat with Kristy Sumner with Soul Sisters Paranormal. Dr. Kristy Sumner holds a PhD in Public Affairs with an emphasis on Criminal Justice from the University of Central Florida. She is the founder of Soul Sisters Paranormal, which is a team of paranormal investigators that travels the country documenting the narrative of historic and, reportedly, haunted locations.
Additionally, Dr. Sumner has assisted communities in historic preservation activities, to include paranormal tourism, at locations such as the Adams County Historical Center in Adams County Colorado, and for the "Ma" Barker House in Marion County Florida.
Highlights
Her most interesting paranormal investigation
What she enjoys the most about this unique hobby
The investigation philosophies and techniques she uses for her investigations
How you can get started in paranormal investigation
How she turned this hobby into a business
Mentioned In This Episode
Where you can find Kristy: Soul Sisters Paranormal website, Facebook and YouTube
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Transcript:
00:00:02 Dr. Destini Copp (host)
And today, my special guest is Kristy Sumner. Kristy is the founder of Soul Sisters Paranormal and co-owner of the historic Scott County Jail and Museum. And Christie, thank you so much for joining me. I am super excited to jump in with you today on our topic which is haunted Hobby, we're going to be talking about paranormal investigation and I am absolutely.
00:00:31 Dr. Destini Copp (host)
Fascinated by this, I've gone to your website. I've watched your videos of all the different places that you have investigated and cannot wait to jump in. But before we get into all the questions I have for you, can you tell the audience a little bit more about you, your background, and how you got into paranormal investigation?
00:00:57 Dr. Kristy Sumner
Well, first of all, thank you for having me. I think this is going to be a very fun conversation and
00:01:02 Dr. Kristy Sumner
I always enjoy when I talk to people who are as fascinated by it as I am. But my name is Doctor Christie Sumner and as you said, I'm the founder of Soul Sisters Paranormal and prior to forming, Soul Sisters Paranormal. My sisters and I, we've always had a fascination with the afterlife and the belief that there is something after this that we just don't cease to be once we die. My personal background of my professional background is as a senior director of a registered.
00:01:32 Dr. Kristy Sumner
Traveler Company really focused on biometrics for aviation and access control at airports. And so, you know, I had the opportunity to travel a lot, see some different things. And because of that, and because my sisters and I are located in different parts of the country, we would routinely get together to have girls’ trips. You know, we'd meet up in different cities just to have a weekend where we could enjoy each other's company and just meet up and so we did that about four or five times a year and so in 2014.
00:02:03 Dr. Kristy Sumner
We decided to meet up in Moundsville, WV, which is where the West Virginia State Penitentiary is located. And we had a family friend that sat on the board of that facility and he said, while you're here for the weekend, why don't you take one of your nights and stay in the former penitentiary and see if you can communicate with any of our resident spirits? And so we absolutely jumped at that chance. And so we had a few voice recorders, a few night vision video cameras, and we left that experience with what we felt was compelling, unexplainable.
00:02:33 Dr. Kristy Sumner
Evidence. We heard footsteps, we heard doors slamming and cell blocks when they we knew that no, no one was there. We heard men speaking when we knew there were no men present. And so for us it was just a fascinating experience. So much so that we decided to form Soul Sisters paranormal. And we had our logo created. We had our theme music created because in our minds we really wanted to try as best as we could elevate this subculture of paranormal into a more mainstream conversation. And so we felt by doing, by being.
00:03:03 Dr. Kristy Sumner
A professional Group One that had a look and feel of you know, those that are legitimately doing this for scientific reasons that we felt that we could really elevate that. And so that's what we decided to do. We form Soul sisters paranormal, like I said, and we've been investigating some of the most haunted locations across the country, really telling the historical narrative first and then coupling that with any unexplained evidence that we find during those investigations.
00:03:30 Dr. Destini Copp (host)
And I like how you're kind of combining that historical element to.
00:03:34 Dr. Destini Copp (host)
Your investigation, because I think that's important, right, to set the stage there. So can you tell us if you've been, you know, I went to your website and it looked like you have been at least two around, you know, 28 or maybe even more places that you've investigated. Can you tell us a little bit about what has been your most interesting investigation and why?
00:03:57 Dr. Kristy Sumner
Absolutely. And just to go back for a second, you know, the historical perspective, like I said, is really what drives us and to your point the reason we, we spend so much time.
00:04:06 Dr. Kristy Sumner
That is because without that history we wouldn't really have the paranormal. And for us, unless you tell the historical perspective accurately, there's really no reason to do what we do. And so that's the reason why we focus so heavily on the on the historical aspect and then we bring in the paranormal aspect after that. But to your point, yes, we've been, we've been to a lot of locations around the country and each of them are so unique because they have a different historical narrative. For example, you know, it's very hard to compare the Saint Augustine.
00:04:36 Dr. Kristy Sumner
Lighthouse with Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary or the Villisca Axe murder house, but I'd say probably one of the most fascinating ones that we've gone to is Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary that's located in Petros, TN. This was a maximum security penitentiary that was in operation from 1869 to 2009 and it's really where they held the worst of the worst in Tennessee and it start really.
00:05:03 Dr. Kristy Sumner
That started after the Civil War when the state of Tennessee was really looking for a way to get revenue after the Civil War. So it built this penitentiary in order to force the prisoners to work the coal mines. And so there's a lot of history behind it, a lot of negative history behind it. And so when it closed in 2009, it said began for a few years and then the current owners now allow paranormal investigations to take place. So we've actually been to Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary twice and both of those, excuse me.
00:05:33 Dr. Kristy Sumner
Both of those times have been fascinating. We've captured shadow figures, we've heard voices, disembodied voices when nobody's standing there. We set up night vision video cameras and night vision or a stationary voice recorder in various locations around the building or the property that we're investigating. So there were numerous times where we heard people talking when we knew that there was nobody else in the cell block. And so that that's a very fascinating location. Brushy, Mountain State Penitentiary, the Lizzie Borden.
00:06:03 Dr. Kristy Sumner
House to the Whiskey Ax murder house, the museum that I currently own in Tennessee. These are all locations that to me are fascinating for the historical narrative, but also for the paranormal perspective as well.
00:06:16 Dr. Destini Copp (host)
So tell us a little bit more and I kind of brushed upon this when I was introducing you, but tell us a little bit more about the historic Scott County Jail that you are co-owner of. Why did you purchase that and is has there been some paranormal activity there also?
00:06:34 Dr. Kristy Sumner
So we we haven't actually perched it, we we lease it from the town of Huntsville, TN. And so about four years ago I met my best friend and business partner, Miranda Young from Ghost Biker Explorations. She is also a paranormal investigator. So we had met up to collaborate on an investigation in North Carolina and we really found that our approach was extremely similar with regard to historic preservation, paranormal investigations, true crime.
00:07:03 Dr. Kristy Sumner
That all fascinated us. And so she's from Scott County, which is where the Huntsville jail is located. So she's from Scott County and last year she said, would you come up and open this museum with me? I think we can make a really great partnership, business partnership with this and because she's got a a great background in marketing and advertising and then I've got some business background. So neither one of us had done anything like this before, but the building.
00:07:34 Dr. Kristy Sumner
Was built in 1904. It was an operation as a jail until 2008, and so it always had a haunted reputation in the community. And so we approached the town and said, will you allow us to open a museum and what we call a paranormal Research Center? And they said absolutely. So last year in September, we opened the doors to the historic Scott County Jail and museum. And to date we've had almost 60 paranormal investigation teams come in and investigate the building. And I can honestly say it's probably one of the most.
00:08:05 Dr. Kristy Sumner
Active locations that I've been in, and I'm not just saying that because I Co own it and work there, it is legitimately haunted. We've captured shadow figures, disembodied voices, footsteps, door slams, objects moving and most teams that come in have similar experiences where they're able to capture something compelling. And to us it's a great building. There's nothing you know that we would call dark or evil or demonic or anything like that.
00:08:35 Dr. Kristy Sumner
These are just legitimate spirits who want to tell their stories, and so to be able to allow others to have that experience, what we experience on a daily basis to us is just fascinating.
00:08:47 Dr. Destini Copp (host)
So that is now on my list, on my bucket list to go visit. I definitely have to check that out. So, you know, you're, you're doing this, I believe with your twin sister as part of Soul Sisters Paranormal. Can you tell us kind of what sets you guys apart? I know that some of the, you know myself and some of the people who might be listening this, we've been exposed to this right from TV shows. Can you tell us a little bit about you guys and what you might do a little bit differently than other people?
00:09:17 Dr. Kristy Sumner
Sure, absolutely. So just to backtrack just a second. So soul Sisters Paranormal is an all-female group. And like I said, we started in 2014 and it was my twin sister, our younger sister, and then two female family friends and we really felt that the dynamics of an all-female group would be something that's a little bit different. You know, we don't go in with bravado, we don't go in with chest thumping or anything like that. We really go in with a respect for the location as well as the respect for the.
00:09:47 Dr. Kristy Sumner
Spirits that we're attempting to communicate with in 2020, really moving into 2021 because of COVID and some family dynamics, we actually went to a two-person investigation. So really, it's just my twin sister and I that conduct the bulk of the investigations. The others will join us as they can, but you know, one of them got a promotion, one had a grandbaby, one moved across the country. So it's just easier for Jenny and I to conduct the investigations as a duo now rather than a team of five.
00:10:18 Dr. Kristy Sumner
And to your point, what I I think what really sets soul sisters Paranormal apart is like I said, first we go in with a respect for the location. And I think that's extremely important because if you don't respect the location then you're not going to respect the spirits of the entities that are said to reside there, right. And why they're there. And so for us, we go in and we actually take a detour before we start the investigation because we want to look at locations or we want to look at.
00:10:48 Dr. Kristy Sumner
At what we consider environmental factors that could influence the investigation that we can explain away or what we think could be causing someone's perception of a haunting. And by that I mean we look at traffic patterns, we look at airplane patterns, we look at train traffic dogs in the neighborhood, kids in the neighborhood, St lights, anything that at night when those things occur, if somebody could perceive them as paranormal, then, you know, we say, no, it's not paranormal, it's environmental.
00:11:18 Dr. Kristy Sumner
And so we take very copious notes on that daytime process of walking through. And that also allows us to find locations where we want to leave our stationary equipment during the nighttime investigation. So after that, we'll go in for the night and we'll set up all of our equipment. We'll set up, like I said, night vision video cameras and stationary voice recorders that we leave around the building or the property that we're investigating. And that really allows us to have eyes and ears on as much of the location as we can.
00:11:49 Dr. Kristy Sumner
And so then we will go through, and we will conduct what we call EVP sessions. That's basically where we sit in a room in the dark and we ask questions. We have voice recorders running. We have various pieces of handheld equipment that we use in an attempt to measure energy or that we feel the spirit can act upon to let us know that it's there and wants to communicate. And so then after that and typically our investigations range anywhere from 8 hours to 24 hours and so it just depends on the location.
00:12:20 Dr. Kristy Sumner
And then after that we collect everything and we sit and listen to everything that we recorded and we watch everything that were recorded as well because we feel that we want to really look at it and listen to it in the raw, IE we don't put it through any software to listen to it, we don't put it through any video enhancing techniques to look at it. We watch it as it was recorded and we listen to it as it was recorded. So that does take a lot of time, but for us we feel it's worth the effort.
00:12:51 Dr. Kristy Sumner
To make sure that that we that we listen to and watch everything that we captured. And I think that is where that deviates a little bit from popular television shows. You know when these TV shows go into a location, they have a crew, they have funding, which you know all of what we do is self-funded and they have time. A lot of these investigations on television, they're not there for just a night, they're there for a week and so they have time to investigate more so than what we do and so.
00:13:21 Dr. Kristy Sumner
That were that's where it really differs a lot from what we do.
00:13:25 Dr. Destini Copp (host)
So I'm just curious, how do you find the size that you are going to investigate? Do people come to you? Do you go out searching for them? How does all of that come into play?
00:13:38 Dr. Kristy Sumner
It's actually both. So we've had locations that will follow us or find us on YouTube or Facebook, and they'll invite us to come and investigate their location, or we just kind of scout it out. We do a lot of research into locations that are considered haunted or that have a haunting legend or lore.
00:13:55 Dr. Kristy Sumner
That we can go and investigate. And then also there's a very big community of paranormal investigators. And so we talked to each other, you know, we message one another, we keep up with what each other is doing. And so if I see another team that has gone to a location that looks interesting, then I'll reach out to that location or, you know, like I said it it, it does base. It's all on a lot of research that we do as well. And so, yeah, that's really how we find those locations. Kind of a mix of both.
00:14:26 Dr. Destini Copp (host)
So let's just say somebody's listening to this and they're like, you know, I am extremely fascinated by this and I'll put myself in this category. How would they, and they wanted to get started in paranormal investigation as a hobby. How would you suggest they get started?
00:14:42 Dr. Kristy Sumner
Personally, I would say the first thing that you have to do is you have to have the right intentions. And by that I mean you have to go in with a respect for the location and a respect for any spirits that you're attempting to communicate with. And without that, there's really no point in what.
00:14:56 Dr. Kristy Sumner
What we're doing, it's not something that you do to get a jump scare on a Friday or a Saturday night and it's not something that you go to or go into just to sit in a cemetery at night. You really have to have that respect level. The next thing I would suggest is to get a voice recorder, just a simple Sony dictation voice recorder and go to a location that is reported to be haunted, whether it be a cemetery or a home or a park in in your area or your community and just sit and ask questions.
00:15:26 Dr. Kristy Sumner
And it, you know, don't get discouraged because it it's kind of like fishing, right? You, these spirits, they're not actors. They're not there to respond on command. And so, you could be sitting there for a while thinking that you're getting nothing. So don't give up. Sit there, ask questions and then go back and really listen to the audio that you just captured. You know, like I said, don't give it a couple minutes and then get discouraged. Really sit down and listen to it. And it takes time and it takes patience and dedication, but once you hear your first.
00:15:56 Dr. Kristy Sumner
DP or you see your first shadow figure. You're really hooked at that point, believe me.
00:16:03 Dr. Destini Copp (host)
So Kristy, you took this hobby and you turned it into a business, I would say a thriving business. Can you tell us a little bit more about how you did that in that process?
00:16:16 Dr. Kristy Sumner
And that's a great question because for me, when we started paranormal investigation or social paranormal to conduct paranormal investigations, it really was for us an exploration into the unknown. We always had, like I said, always had a fascination with the afterlife and what happens next. And I really started putting the videos together because my family was asking what it was like, you know, for the first few investigations, you know, we didn't put anything together. We just went and had the.
00:16:46 Dr. Kristy Sumner
Experience. And then my aunts and uncles from across the country were saying, well, what, what did it feel like? What did you experience? What did you see? And that's really why I started producing the videos that that we put out there now. And with that came, you know, a fan base, some people that watched regular regularly that communicate with us on Facebook or reach out to us on our website or YouTube and so it was never meant to be as big as it has become. Now. Don't get me wrong, I'm having a blast with it and what it's doing.
00:17:17 Dr. Kristy Sumner
But for me, it was never about that. And so it really led me to again meet up with Miranda from those biker explorations because I had been following her episodes and she had been following Soul Sisters. And so I reached out to her and I said, you know, would you like to do a collaboration investigation? And she said sure. And through that really formed this great friendship and partnership on, on a business level because we, we both decided that we wanted to pursue this a little bit further than just.
00:17:47 Dr. Kristy Sumner
Hobbies. And so her father unfortunately ended up dying there in Scott County where she's from. And so she wanted to go back and help her mom and be there for her mother. And she obviously needed something to do and pursue while she was up there. And so she said, you know, the the historic Scott County Jail is just sitting vacant. Would you be willing to go into this venture with me and I said, sure, let's do this and what we have built, I'm extremely proud of.
00:18:17 Dr. Kristy Sumner
Inside this little county jail, we took this building that was just sitting there, and we've created a very robust crime and punishment museum. We have a law enforcement appreciation section to that museum as well. And we also, like I said, allow paranormal investigators to come in and investigate this historic building. And it's really is a perfect blend of true crime and law enforcement and paranormal and people love it because we're going.
00:18:47 Dr. Kristy Sumner
From the historical preservation perspective, which we're both very passionate about, to the paranormal perspective, which were both very passionate about and we were able to take this essentially a hobby as you said, and turned it into a viable business that people are really responding to.
00:19:04 Dr. Destini Copp (host)
So Kristy, if somebody would like to learn more about your business or how they might want to maybe, you know, watch you on YouTube, where would they be able to find you online?
00:19:17 Dr. Kristy Sumner
So our website is www.soulsistersparanormal.com. We're also very active on Facebook under Soul Sisters Paranormal, and our YouTube channel is Soul Sisters paranormal.
00:19:28 Dr. Destini Copp (host)
OK, we will make sure that all of those links are in the show notes so people can just click on them and find you and Kristy.
00:19:34 Dr. Destini Copp (host)
Thank you so much for joining me today. I am completely fascinated by all of this and I am definitely going to put that on my bucket list to go visit you guys at your museum. And again, thank you so much for joining us and we will make sure that all those links are in the show so people can click on it, find you and go find out a little bit more about what you're doing.
00:19:57 Dr. Kristy Sumner
Thank you so much. I appreciate it.