Tuforo Investigation

The Tuforo Case
Part 1
By Donna Kent

This case is a good example of how real investigations proceed; slowly and over a length of time. They aren’t like the ones you see on TV, that can be solved within a one or two hour time span - with breaks for commercial programming. Sure, a group of people can pack up their gear, cameras and other ghost detecting equipment, head off to a location, interview witnesses and try to document paranormal activity on film all within the time it takes to watch an awards show like the Oscars, but to actually communicate with a troubled spirit, or oust a tenacious entity, to bring resolution to a case can require a lot of time, return visits, and general hard work and concentration on the part of the investigators and researchers, not to mention the psychic's participation in the case and - most importantly, - the active participation of the homeowners.

Without the full cooperation of the homeowner or witness, our efforts are thwarted greatly. If they don’t follow through, the days of planning and prearranged rituals to help rid a negative entity’s stronghold over an entire family are for not. Why wouldn't a person do the simplest prayer to help themselves out of such a predicament? The answer isn't simple. And is best typified by the individuals involved in one of our recent investigations “The Tuforo Case.”

Cosmic’s first contact with the family came as a result of a previous article in our newsletter, CURSES part 2, by Nancy Raz Zieglar. Funny, because she had been wondering if anyone really cared about her writings since there hadn’t been a lot of feedback on them. Whether or not people like the articles (which I can’t see how they wouldn’t) was beside the point; the fact was someone who needed our help related to something she had written and decided to call. Indirectly Nancy received the assurance she wished for - the information she wrote about had reached the person who needed it.

This person was Connie Tuforo and she called asking if we could come and talk to her family regarding a lifelong curse she felt had been put on her family over 30 years before. I took info from her over the phone regarding the types of phenomena they had been experiencing. After hearing the details I asked Connie and her mother to both wear an old pair of socks the day of our investigation as I would like to have one from each of them to send to our “resident shaman” Shadowsmoke, for him to psychometrize first, without any further details of the case.

We assembled a small team to conduct our initial investigation on June 23rd, 1999. Sitting in a small finished basement, Alicia Haley and I interviewed the family while Dan Croll managed the video cameras. My Sony Video8 TR-73 “died” five minutes into filming (refusing to cooperate for the rest of the evening, however it worked fine again once I was home).

To say this family had problems was a huge understatement. They couldn’t even agree on signing the short disclaimer that I provide to both clients and society members at the very beginning of each and every investigation we undertake. It protects Cosmic Society against any accidental liabilities and also gives the homeowners an option of confidentiality in regards to their images and likenesses being used commercially, whether on our website or in this newsletter, etc. This document helps protect the members copyrights on video and photos while also allowing the society to retain copies for it’s perpetual files in regards to each case investigation.

Anyhow, after explaining that this was standard procedure, and that they weren’t signing their lives away, nor their home or property over to me (sic), the head of the family Anthony, relented and signed the form. They asked to have their likenesses and identities modified to protect their identities from being recognized which I fully understood and agreed with. (Names have been changed and images blocked).

Connie, 31, had reported that her mother seemed to be the most affected by whatever “evil force had been directed at them” from the time that she was just a baby. Her symptoms included headaches, backaches, loss of appetite, weight loss of over 50 pounds, foul tastes, foul smells, stomach ailments (all of which could be attributed to medical ailments but at this point, could not be cured by regular doctors) and the aversion to prayer in the house. They had all been privy to experiencing sounds of a key being turned in the locks, storm door opening and closing, footsteps, TV acting on it’s own accord, and sounds of “something” ruffling through the home, a split level ranch built in the 1940’s, situated on a 1/2 acre wooded lot.

To their knowledge no tragedy, illness or death occurred prior to their taking up residency there and because they had also lived in a house in West Haven, CT (where they feel it all began) before moving here, I was inclined to believe the problem lay with them as a family and not necessarily with the property.

It appears their problems began in 1967, and stemmed from a small Italian woman with whom they shared a property line at the edge of their backyard. She was known to be a witch locally and from personal testimony of her family members, namely a nephew and her husband. It seems she was prone to “crossing the line” into the Tuforo property and killing off small shrubs which had been planted to try and provide a natural barrier between the yards - nothing personal, just for a bit of privacy. This planting and killing cycle continued without words between both parties through three different sets of shrubs. Finally Anthony confronted the woman’s husband who said he would speak to his wife about the plants and did - without favorable results.

The old woman was seen to sprinkle a white powdery substance on the shrubs and they soon died likewise. Mr. Toforo had finally had it and one day while the woman had her clothes hanging out to dry, set a huge bonfire in the yard - dowsing her freshly washed clothes in a thick black haze.

The next day as the children walked to school, the old woman emerged from her home and stood a few feet away from them glaring menacingly but never speaking a word. This staring was continued at all the family members at every occasion that presented itself, but mainly while the children made their way to and from school. Tony Jr. (now aged 42 and also still living at home with his parents, who, until that time had been a quite popular boy at school now had a sudden reversal of feelings from his peers. He was ostracized, picked on, beat up and spit out by all of his former friends. This treatment and dislike was to continue throughout his entire school career.

In 1968, the family which consists of the above mentioned parents, Anthony and Lee, children Connie and Tony Jr. along with one other sibling Ricky (who we’ll get to later) set off in a brand new station wagon only to have the motor fall out hours into their trip. The day was spent on the side of the highway and in a nearby garage where the mechanics could only say “They’d never seen anything like it” and “There’s no way this should have happened.” A few days after arriving home, Lee was pushed from behind down a flight of cellar stairs, landing face first on the cement at bottom. No one was near her at the time of the incident. Everyone who rushed to her aid smelled a strong smell of “feces and rotting flesh” in the basement.

They began to believe their troubles had an otherworldly source and started looking around for some answers. Unbeknownst to the rest of the clan, Mr. Tuforo began to consult local fortune tellers and gypsies who warned him that “he did indeed suffer from a lifelong family curse that could never be broken”. Hundreds of dollars later and now frozen with fear, Mr. Tuforo decided to once again confront his neighbors for information about the old woman out back.

The nephew of the old woman relayed a story that had taken place one night when his uncle decided to go out gambling with his friends, much to the old woman’s refusal. She warned her husband “he’d be sorry” if he went as he stormed out of the house against her wishes. Late that night as he returned to his car, he found the entire vehicle “cemented shut” never to be operable again. He also claimed that she had the power to cast “the malochia” (pronounced ma-loy-ka), well known to Strega and other Italian witches and warlocks. He said she had a reputation and was known to be very powerful. His words were not taken lightly and only seemed to send the family toward a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This information, coupled by the fear that had spread amongst the Tuforo family like wildfire was just “kindling wood” that thereby gave the “curse” more power by the minute. We learned that a relative of Lee, an uncle, had murdered his wife and then killed himself while questioning the family about any tragedies in the family line. This information would come into play on a future visit to the home and which we’ll discuss in part 2 of this article.

The family’s other son; “the married one” as he’s called had cut off all ties to his nuclear family in the eighties, not even allowing his parent’s visits with their two grandchildren. Few phone calls are exchanged due to the fact that there is always an argument or disagreement (which is how the Tuforos spend 90% of their waking lives) and he finally got sick of it.

They claim that he and his wife have violent fights and there has been some mental and physical abuse (Joyce St. Germaine picks up on this psychically months later - full details in part 3) between the two of them. We had no contact with Ricky so cannot give an opinion or account of his involvement with this case.

We learned that the family has had numerous psychic and religious groups and individuals in the home. One priest refused to enter and bless the home although others had with little or no success (according to the family). They felt their own church officials did not believe in their occurrences and once during a prayer/healing session they were walking past a priest whom they had never met or even spoken to who turned to them and said “Don’t you think maybe God wants you to suffer?” All of this drove a deeper wedge in their faith and added to their suffering in silence and isolation. Connie confessed she had given up on her faith in God during our first visit to the home.

Though they were strict Catholics, they had gone to ministers and parishes of other religions in their quest for peace. Getting nowhere, the dissention in the house continued to steadily grow. Around this time, Mrs. Tuforo began to notice strange things happening involving water: puddles of it could be found in new containers of make-up, and a three-ringed image appeared on the wall of her bedroom only to disappear three days following it’s discovery. Brand new clothing began to have patterns of holes in it, usually two or three quarter sized perforations that couldn’t be explained. Black shadows were seen to float around doorways, disappearing soon after being spotted.

Two gold crosses, one a crucifix, disappeared and Lee accused Connie of stealing them. This happened over 15 years ago, yet the accusation still set Connie off on a rampage of denial to the theft, and her parents still to this day use a padlock on the outer side of their bedroom door!

Up to this point Alicia had been taking photos with her digital camera and was getting results in the lower level of the home of small and dime sized globules. Dan and I walked the perimeter of the building outside and while standing in the front yard, looking at the house, he felt the hair on his arm stand straight up. I snapped a photo. He then said he saw “a mist over the roof” and I took another shot with my Fuji Discovery 290 Zoom 35 mm. For a split second I thought I saw a mist also, but it was gone just as quickly as it had come. Dan confirmed that he no longer saw the mist.

We continued around the exterior and took a dozen or more shots of the home from all angles. The results would surprise us and lead to further questions (see photos on page 11)

To wrap up our initial visit, I advised the mother, Lee to start the following night with a “beer bath”, an effective if general, remedy against the “evil eye” or “ malochia”. I had printed instructions for a series of spiritual baths to begin on a Friday and to continue for 7 days, consisting of herbs of basil, dill and rye amongst other ingredients. While in the bath she was told to light 3 small yellow candles and recite a petition to St. Theresa. She was to attend Mass and have herself blessed with holy water for the duration. We gave her instructions that included an easy writing ritual, a mirror, a cemetery and an eggplant as an offering.

We told her to make a donation to a homeless shelter or food pantry as another gesture of faith and dedication. Let me just mention here that this was in no way, shape, or form an attempt to give medical advice.

Simply put, spiritual baths and the rituals that accompany them are done to change the polarity and chemical properties of the body and it’s aura; in this case to throw the energy of the evil eye and it’s minions off track. Sounds wacky, but it works. If you follow the instructions, that is. And best to do it with conviction.

We packed up our equipment and the aforementioned socks, and told the family they could call us at any time with any questions or concerns and that on our second visit to the home we would bring along a psychic or shaman, depending on what information they gleaned and what our film results might or might not tell us. Another consideration would be how the baths affected Lee and her family (I felt that their reactions if any, to the “remedies” would tell us a lot about what might actually be going on with them and in the home, details in Part 2) and we warned that activity in the home might increase after our visit (due to the fact that they were possibly attempting to get help against a negative, if not demonic, condition).

Now, up to this point in the investigation I was unsure as to whether we were really dealing with victims of the evil-eye or a deeply troubled family who were all too eager to find supernatural answers to problems that were more in the realm of a need for change in their personal attitudes toward each other.

In part 2, The Shaman gives his impressions on personal items psychometrized and how, after discussing the matter with him, I ended up in the emergency room just an hour later.

And we return to the Tufuros home to continue the investigation in Part 2.

©Donna Kent
Photo 1 – Cosmic Society Member Dan Croll felt the hairs of his arm stand straight up as he sensed and saw a mist hover just above the roof of the Tuforo home.
©Donna Kent
Photo 2 – Why did this bright round “globule” (above) appear over the house when it was a mist shape that was seen? Why didn’t the anamoly appear as a mist?
©Donna Kent
Photo 7 – (in a series) Although not quite round ,the bright “energy ball” has now moved to the right side of the home. A clear globule was also photographed just after photo 2 however other shots taken in between pictures 2-7 of same location show no signs of energy.

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