You’ve probably seen the headlines or maybe caught that Netflix movie The Deliverance and wondered if any of it was actually real. Honestly, the story of Latoya Ammons is one of those rare cases where the "true story" label isn't just a marketing gimmick used to sell movie tickets. It’s a messy, terrifying, and deeply documented account that left even seasoned police captains and government social workers shaking.
Basically, back in 2011, Latoya Ammons moved her family into a small rental house on Carolina Street in Gary, Indiana. She was a single mom with three kids and her own mother, Rosa Campbell, lived with them too. It started with flies. Huge, black flies swarming their porch in the dead of winter. You know, the kind of thing you’d ignore as a weird seasonal fluke until the footsteps started.
The Night Everything Changed in Gary
The house at 3860 Carolina Street became known as the "Portal to Hell." That’s a heavy title for a modest one-story home. But according to the family, things escalated from creaky floorboards to full-on chaos. Ammons claimed her 12-year-old daughter levitated above her bed while unconscious. Her sons allegedly spoke in deep, demonic voices that didn't sound like children at all.
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Most people would call "hoax" immediately. But here’s where it gets weird. Unlike your typical ghost story, this one has a paper trail. We’re talking nearly 800 pages of official records from the Indiana Department of Child Services (DCS).
A DCS case manager named Valerie Washington was actually there. She filed an official report stating she saw Ammons' youngest son walk backward up a wall and onto the ceiling. A nurse who was in the room, Willie Lee Walker, backed her up. They weren't ghost hunters looking for a thrill; they were government employees doing a routine welfare check.
Why Skeptics Still Have Doubts
It’s not all supernatural certainty, though. Some experts, like clinical psychologist Stacy Wright, looked at the situation and saw something else. She suggested the children were acting in a way that mirrored their mother’s delusions. The family doctor, Geoffrey Onyeukwu, was also skeptical. He didn’t see any levitation himself and chalked it up to "hallucinations."
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Then there's the landlord, Charles Reed. He’d lived there before and never saw a single ghost. He basically thought the whole thing was a play to get out of paying rent. It’s a classic "he said, she said," except for the part where a police captain, Charles Austin—a 36-year veteran—publicly said he believed the house was haunted.
Exorcisms and Zak Bagans
Things got so intense that a priest, Reverend Michael Maginot, was called in. He didn't just sprinkle some holy water and leave. He performed three major exorcisms on Latoya Ammons herself. She described the experience as feeling like she was "hurting all over from the inside out," kind of like giving birth but way worse.
Eventually, the family had enough. They moved to Indianapolis in 2012. Interestingly, once they left that specific house, the activity reportedly stopped. The kids went back to school, and the "demons" seemingly stayed behind on Carolina Street.
In 2014, Zak Bagans, the guy from Ghost Adventures, bought the house for about $35,000. He filmed a documentary there called Demon House. He was so freaked out by what he found—or claimed to find—that he actually had the house demolished in 2016. He didn't want anyone else living there.
Where is Latoya Ammons Today?
So, what happened to the woman at the center of it all? Latoya has mostly stayed out of the spotlight lately. When Lee Daniels was making The Deliverance, he reached out to her. He didn’t want to meet her in person because he was nervous about the "energy," but they spoke on the phone. He said she seemed "lovely" and, more importantly, "at peace."
She regained custody of her children in late 2012 after the DCS investigation closed, and by all accounts, they’ve lived a normal life in Indianapolis since then. No more flies. No more wall-walking.
If you're looking to dig deeper into the actual evidence, your best bet is to look up the original 2014 reporting by the Indianapolis Star. They were the ones who broke the story and went through the massive DCS file. You can also track down the Demon House documentary if you want to see the interior of the home before it was leveled. It’s a wild rabbit hole, but at least for the Ammons family, the nightmare seems to be over.