Purgatory House

Purgatory House - Research Report

Located in Southampton Township, Burlington County, NJ, near Route 70, lies a "haunted" attraction locals have dubbed the "Purgatory House." The house is actually on Purgatory Road. I heard about it for the first time from a few friends, a couple on our current team, who had been on a ghost hunt to the location. I became very intrigured by their accounts, and did some research into the subject. After reading numerous blogs and watching a few videos, I wanted to write a comprehensive "research report" on the case. This post documents what I found...

I haven't found found a reason as to why the road is called "Purgatory" Road, but what I read from other bloggers states:
a) Purgatory has something to do with the rivers and ravines near the road
b) Obviously, the word's most well-known definition: The midpoint between Heaven and Hell

       Honestly, this is one of the biggest concerns I have. Why is it called Purgatory? As far as I can tell, nobody knows for absolute certain. I've read a lot of different reports on the house, and people's accounts of the history of the house is varied. The neighbor says, "there's no house and no ghosts," while many others says the complete opposite, reporting that there is indeed a very haunted house there. A deteriorating old farm house abandonded apparently back in the 1940s-50s, it's three stories tall with busted out windows and covered in graffiti.

       An eyewitness mentioned that some of the graffiti read, "God please bless this house." It sounds like someone is trying to keep someone (or something) else out. But what? What the hell happened in this house? I read an account that a man who owned the house brutally murdered his family with an axe. What could have caused him to do that? Is this a case of a cold-blooded killer, or did the house get the best of the man and his family?

       There's a common factor in many accounts and I was happy when I came across a name: Alacon. Apparently, a young girl named Maria Alacon, 17-18, got into a car crash near the intersection of Route 541 and Church Road. She reportely lived in the house. She was gruesomely decapitated in the accident. This story was seemingly validated by a Sandy **********, who wrote on a topix.com forum, "I knew both of them and the house[.] it was haunted[,] I grew up around there." Some say a girl still lives on the property. Could this be Maria? Her mother, being very religious, felt the evil in the house and abandoned it soon after the accident. Some say the kitchen floor shakes from the captured anguish and anger in the house.

       The Purgatory House still attracts people today. Partying teenagers, burglars, and satanic cults have all polluted, but also added to, the eerie feel of the house. There are still unanswered questions for me: Why is this particular house so evil-sounding? And what evil drove the Alacons out of that house?

       South Jersey Unusual is planning to further investigate the Purgatory House, and attempt to answer unsolved mysteries. We are eager to check it out, and will share our results with everyone as soon as we get them!

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- Dale