If you grew up watching A Haunting on the Discovery Channel, you probably remember the Wyrick family. They were the ones in Ellerslie, Georgia, with the little girl, Heidi, who didn't just have an imaginary friend—she had a dead one. His name was Mr. Gordy. He wore a suit. He had shiny black shoes. He pushed her on the swing in the backyard while her mother, Lisa, watched from the kitchen window, seeing only an empty seat moving back and forth in the Georgia heat.
It's one of those stories that sticks. Most "ghost" stories are about malevolent spirits throwing dishes or screaming in the night, but the haunting in Georgia Mr Gordy saga started out surprisingly... sweet? If you can call a dead man babysitting a four-year-old sweet.
But here's the thing: if you've only seen the 2013 movie The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia, you actually don't know the half of it. Hollywood did what Hollywood does—they added a "Stationmaster" villain and a bunch of Underground Railroad lore that wasn't really the core of the family's actual experience. The real story is much weirder, a lot more personal, and, honestly, kind of heartbreaking.
Who Was the Real Mr. Gordy?
For a long time, Lisa and Andy Wyrick just thought Heidi was being a normal kid. She was three and a half when they moved to the house in 1989. She talked about "Mr. Gordy" and another guy she called "Con." Lisa just figured they were imaginary.
Then things got weird.
Lisa’s sister bought the house next door. While looking through the old property deeds, she found a name: James S. Gordy.
He wasn't a fictional character. James Gordy was a real person who had owned that land. He was a well-known figure in the local community, a real estate mogul in Columbus, and a Sunday school superintendent at the Ellerslie United Methodist Church. He had died in 1974, years before the Wyricks ever set foot in Ellerslie.
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Heidi described him perfectly. She said he had grey hair, wore a suit and tie, and always had those polished black shoes. A neighbor, Catherine Ledford, who had known the real Mr. Gordy since she was a child, confirmed the description was spot on.
The Photo Line-up
This is the part that usually trips up the skeptics. Dr. William Roll, a famous parapsychologist from Georgia Choice, got involved in the case later on. He wanted to see if Heidi was just feeding off her parents' suggestions.
He didn't just ask her questions. He sat her down with a stack of old photos. Among them were pictures of various people from the area’s history. Without hesitating, Heidi pointed to a tiny, old photograph.
"That's Mr. Gordy," she said.
She also identified "Con." His real name was Lon "Con" Batchelor. He was Catherine Ledford's uncle. In life, he had lost a hand in a cotton gin accident. Heidi had described him as a man with a "bloody bandage" on his hand. He had died in 1957. How does a four-year-old know the specific injury of a neighbor who died thirty years before she was born?
Beyond the Friendly Ghost
If the story ended with Mr. Gordy pushing a swing, it would be a nice local legend. But the haunting in Georgia Mr Gordy timeline takes a dark turn around 1993.
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Lisa got pregnant with her second daughter, Jordan. Suddenly, the "friendly" neighbors weren't the only ones visiting. Heidi started seeing a "dark figure." She became hysterical, a complete 180 from the calm child who used to chat with Mr. Gordy in the garden.
Then the physical stuff started.
- The Scratches: Heidi woke up with deep, red gashes on her face.
- The Escalation: Andy, the father, was a skeptic. He thought Heidi was scratching herself in her sleep. Then he started waking up with three distinct claw marks down his side, his back, and his chest.
- The Shadow Man: This wasn't Mr. Gordy. This was something else—a faceless, hooded figure that seemed to move through the hallway like a physical weight.
Honestly, it’s easy to look at this and say, "Okay, this is where they made it up for TV." But Dr. Roll's investigation actually found some weird environmental stuff. He noted an extreme concentration of positively charged ions in Heidi’s room. In the world of parapsychology, that’s often linked to "poltergeist" activity or high-stress environments.
The Science (Or Lack Thereof)
Dr. Roll didn't just say "it's ghosts" and leave. He looked for rational causes. He checked for geologic faults (there’s one nearby) and radon gas. He even considered dermographia, a skin condition where the slightest rub can cause a raised, red welt that looks like a scratch.
It’s a plausible theory for the marks on Andy and Heidi. But it doesn't explain how Heidi knew about James Gordy's shoes.
The Wyricks eventually moved. Heidi grew up. In later interviews, she mentioned that she hasn't seen Mr. Gordy in decades. The "friendly" part of the haunting seemed to fade as she entered adulthood, though she’s maintained throughout her life that her "gift" never really went away. She just stopped living in the house that acted as the catalyst.
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What We Can Learn From the Wyrick Case
The haunting in Georgia Mr Gordy is a classic example of how a real-life mystery gets swallowed by pop culture. The movie makes it about slavery and secret rooms. The real story is about a family trying to figure out why their daughter knows things she shouldn't.
If you’re looking into this case for yourself, here are a few things to keep in mind:
- Check the deeds: The most compelling evidence in this case isn't the "scary" stuff; it's the paper trail. James S. Gordy was a real man.
- Separate the film from the facts: Ignore the "Stationmaster" plotline. It was invented for the 2013 movie to provide a traditional "horror movie" ending.
- Look at the parapsychology: Dr. William Roll's notes on the case are available in various archives and offer a much more clinical, less sensationalized look at the Wyrick home.
Most hauntings are just stories told in the dark. But when a child identifies a man dead for fifteen years from a photo they've never seen, it moves from a "ghost story" to a genuine anomaly. Whether it was spirits, a rare psychic sensitivity, or some bizarre environmental fluke, the Wyricks lived through something that science still hasn't quite managed to pin down.
If you're ever in Ellerslie, you won't find a museum or a plaque. It's just a quiet corner of Georgia. But for one family, for a few years in the 90s, it was the center of a very real, very documented mystery.
To dig deeper, you should look up the original Unsolved Mysteries segment from the mid-90s. It features the actual family members before the Hollywood dramatization took over, and seeing Heidi—as a child—describe Mr. Gordy is significantly more unsettling than any jump scare a movie can provide. You can also find Dr. William Roll’s case studies on "The Gordy Case" in parapsychological journals if you want the data behind the drama.