Elton Castee, a social media star known for his YouTube podcasts TFIL and Overnight, has recently been in the news for purchasing famed ghost hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren’s Monroe, Conn., home with his friend, comedian Matt Rife. Going by the entity Haunted Homes LLC, they paid the Warrens’ daughter Judy Spera $1 million for the four-bedroom contemporary-style house on just over half-an-acre.
The view from Castee’s bedroom window, overlooking Riverview Cemetery while growing up in Shelton, may be what first sparked his interest in the occult.
“I grew up inside that property line,” he said in a phone interview with The Sun Tuesday. “I think that morbid sense, you see funerals every day outside your bedroom window, you inadvertently have an interest in the paranormal.”
Then is was a love of horror movies like “The Blair Witch Project” before making YouTube videos of overnight stays for once-in-a-lifetime experiences at infamous places like Alcatraz Island, the Paris Catacombs, Aokigahara (Suicide) Forest in Japan and Bran Castle in Romania.
His friendship with comedian Matt Rife eventually led to a desire to own a haunted house.
The two men met each other a few times doing standup comedy shows at the same places and were mild acquaintances at the same gym. They shared an interest in the occult, but it was when Rife relayed his story about taking a long drive to see the Amityville House, that Castee realized Rife’s interest was as strong as his.
“I thought he got in. I’ve been trying for years. He said no,” Castee recalled. “I said, ‘you’re so enthusiastic about it that you drove two hours just to see it?'”
“I invited him to do one of my paranormal videos and we had a lot of fun,” Castee said. “Then we did road trips and simultaneously his career took off and I’m still doing videos.”
Castee tries to see all of Rife’s biggest shows as a show of support.
“He’ll always be my friend,” he said of Rife. “We probably wouldn’t be together without Ed and Lorraine Warren.”
Owning a home
Castee said he and Rife’s interest in the paranormal led to a search for a famous home they could buy together.
“Over the years of us doing paranormal investigations, I always wanted to own a paranormal location,” Castee said. “I’ve been at some over the years and saw what people did right and wrong. I looked in Texas and looked at ‘The Conjuring’ house. Now that Matt is having the success he’s had, I said, ‘if I do find a house, do you want to do it together?'”
Rife was on board and the duo zeroed in on buying a haunted house in Texas.
After nine months of going through the approval process, including inspections for fire safety and working with zoning officials, asbestos was found and the deal fell through. While disappointed, the learning experience would pay off while pursuing the Warren house purchase this year.
“Now we know what mistakes not to make and how to do it properly,” Castee said. “I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason.”
The house of all houses
Dan Rivera, 54, a Connecticut paranormal investigator who was one of the handlers of the famed Annabelle doll believed by many to be possessed by evil spirits, died suddenly in a Pennsylvania hotel room one weekend last July, while on a national tour with the toy. The coroner has since determined the cause of death to be from natural causes.
Prior to that, River had texted Castee on April 4 saying, “hey are you interested in buying a house.”
“It’s Dan, ‘I think I know what house you’re talking about,'” Castee recalled of his immediate realization Rivera was talking about the late Ed and Lorraine Warren’s Monroe home.
Four months of Zoom calls ensued with Rivera, the Warrens’ daughter Judy Spera, son-in-law Tony Spera and Chris Gilloren, who was Rivera’s best friend, according to Castee.
“This was not a cold call,” Castee said. “I’ve known Tony Spera and the New England Society of Paranormal Research.”
In April of 2022, Castee said Tony Spera and the NESPR chose him and his “Overnight” podcast team to be the first to investigate the Warren house.
“I raised $520,000 for Feeding America by staying in the house for five days, doing a live feed for 100 hours,” Castee said.
Stomping footsteps
On his podcast, Castee describes himself as the skeptic of the group, trying to investigate a logical source of a strange noise inside a haunted location, rather than coming to the immediate conclusion that “it must be a demon!”
“I believe the museum is the most haunted location in the world,” he said of the Warren property. “Every time I’ve been in there, at least three things happen that I can’t explain.”
“I was in there the other night to investigate for 90 minutes and we heard stomping footsteps that nobody could figure out,” Castee said. “The glass on Annabelle’s case was tapping and we could see the case and couldn’t understand how it was happening.”
Another phenomenon may be more explainable.
“There was a rumbling, so loud we looked it up to see if there was an earthquake,” Castee recalled.
It turns out that an earthquake shook New York, so it is possible that reverberations were felt in some parts of Connecticut.
It takes a certain mindset to go to some of the places that Castee has been.
Of avoiding the wrath of evil spirits, he said, “I think it’s being respectful, not provoking it. I just have that mentality that nothing will happen to me. Maybe I could be wrong, but that’s the mentality. I always bring that with me.”
Clearing away spiderwebs
Castee and Rife are currently working with Monroe town officials, while preparing a zoning application to open a new occult museum in a commercial building on Main Street — the location has yet to be announced.
They plan to pack up the notorious Annabelle doll, and around 750 other items in the old museum attached to the home, and move it all from the Warren property to the museum. They also plan to beef up security and operate the house as an Airbnb.
When he first knew the sale of the Warren house would happen, Castee said, “it was a lot of excitement, a lot of disbelief. Even to this day it still feels a little surreal. It probably won’t feel real until all the bells and whistles are done, until everything’s settled down it won’t feel like a reality.”
Rife is currently filming a show for Netflix, so he will not see the house until December.
“The last time he was in there, the entire basement was filled floor-to-ceiling with storage bins and it had spiderwebs,” Castee said of the old house, which was built in 1947. “I’ve been trying to clean and repair water damage.”
Though the Warrens’ house may be the crown jewel of haunted properties, news of the purchase spread more quickly than Rife and Castee could have ever predicted.
“The overall reaction has been monumentally larger than we honestly expected, which is a phenomenal thing,” Castee said. “The only downside is this game of telephone, where this information has been misconstrued. We had people say we bought a house in Rhode Island, just to show how far its gone”
Either way, if the museum and Airbnb proposal takes off, Castee said he believes their purchase can be good news for Monroe.
“My perspective as a nonresident of Monroe is this could have a positive impact on the businesses in town,” he said. “People will go to the restaurants and go shopping, stay by at nearby hotels and other Airbnbs.”
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