In the more than 95 years since it was built, 272 Innisfil St. has been home to a slaughterhouse and an antique market, but according to the team from a popular YouTube series, it’s also home to several ghosts.
Raif Boric and Krista Maryk, who make up two-thirds of the paranormal investigative team of Walking Among Us, spent three hours inside the 25,000-square-foot building near Essa Road earlier this month after they heard of some of the not-so-normal things that have taken place there.
Shirley Sanford, owner of Sanford and Son Emporium which is located inside the building, told BarrieToday the team came for a visit on Nov. 2.
“One of my employees was talking to one of the customers and something was brought up about the spirits that are in that building," she said. "The woman said she knew some people that do the paranormal thing, so she asked if it would be OK if they phone me.
“It was really interesting to see what was going on.”
In the five years that she’s been in the building, Sanford said she’s seen plenty of “unexplainable” things take place.
“About three weeks ago, I was up in a booth. Everybody had left and I was doing my rounds at night for closing," she said. "I went into this booth and was looking to see what new things they’d brought in. I could hear a woman and a man's voice … I thought maybe there was a radio in the booth and it was on low and they’d forgotten to turn it off, but there was no radio.”
Sanford poked around a little more, but couldn’t find any source for the noise. And despite being late and alone, she wasn’t fearful.
The next week while doing her closing routine, Sanford said an Elvis clock started singing.
“There is an Elvis clock hanging on the wall … so I thought OK, it’s a motion-sensor thing. I went into the booth and I was singing and dancing and then all of a sudden it shut off," she said. "I went back and forth three times that night into where I had triggered it and nothing.
"The next morning when I came into work, I went to try it and nothing. I pulled the clock off the wall and you have to push a button for it to go off,” she said.
She remembers another incident which included a ladder that was found in the middle of the floor; despite the shop having been closed, it was nearby a spot where she said a man had hanged himself.
The building has been the scene of five separate deaths, Sanford told BarrieToday, including two suicides, one person who was gored by a cow, and two who were killed in a boiler-room explosion.
As for what occurred on the property prior to the building’s construction in 1929, she has no idea and said it could very well play a role in the site’s haunting.
Raif Boric, lead investigator for Walking Among Us, said that going into their visit, they didn’t know too much about the structure's history, nor were they aware of what had occurred there over the years.
“It was just kind of like let’s go and see what happens,” he said. “We met up with Shirley … and we both went to different spots … to see what happens.”
While he was by himself with the spouse of one of the store’s employees on one side of the building, he says he was drawn to a doll on a shelf, telling BarrieToday he is a collector of “haunted artifacts.”
“I have six haunted dolls and a haunted teddy bear at home. This doll just drew me in," Boric said. "When it was time to start, I went up to the doll and set up some motion-sensored cat balls, a REM pod (which is a piece of ghost-hunting equipment that indicates changes in ambient temperature) and had my cameras going. This thing would not stop with the motion-sensored cat balls and there were noises going on all in the area,” he said.
“At one point, I was standing there asking questions and we heard a little girl call out. We looked at each other like ‘what the (heck) was that!?’”
Boric said they went to explore where the sound came from, which is when he heard Maryk yelling from where she was in the building.
“We started running back and she was where the doll was … and asked what all the banging was about,” he said, adding neither he nor the employee’s wife knew what his partner was talking about. "We’d just heard the kid’s voice, which is where Shirley had heard disembodied voices in the area previously.”
Boric told BarrieToday it felt like a game of cat and mouse trying to track down the spirits.
“We’ve encountered that a lot, and it sometimes gets a little annoying because you go thinking you’re going to experience something and it just leads you around the building," he said. “It was a good experience and there was a plethora of (paranormal) activity."
Boric ended up bringing the “haunted doll” home to add to his collection.
“I have her in the room with the other ones," he said. "I am pretty sure her arm moved the other night, so I am setting up a security camera in the haunted room.”
Sanford says she found the entire experience “fascinating,” adding she "absolutely" believes in ghosts.
“I don’t get scared over any of this stuff that happens. I am all for it,” she said. “When these guys came in, I saw it for myself. The white orbs and the one gentleman at the very end had forgotten something upstairs … When we got up there, one of the revolving showcases was on and (it) hadn’t been on 15 minutes early when we’d been up there.”
The episode is expected to air on the Walking Among Us YouTube channel in January 2025.
