The Haunted Congelier House

The house that would become infamous was built in the 1860s by Charles Wright Congelier, a prosperous businessman who had made his fortune in Pittsburgh's booming industrial economy. Congelier constructed an impressive Victorian mansion in Manchester, then an affluent neighborhood, for his wife Lyda and their household staff.

By all accounts, the Congeliers seemed to be a respectable family living a comfortable life. Charles was known as a shrewd businessman but a devoted husband. Lyda was active in local society. They employed several servants, including a young maid named Essie, who would become central to the house's first recorded tragedy.

The precise details of what happened vary depending on the source, but the outcome is consistent: Charles Congelier began an affair with Essie, the young maid. When Lyda discovered the infidelity, something in her snapped.

In 1871, Lyda Congelier took an axe and murdered both her husband and Essie, hacking them to pieces in what newspapers of the era described as a scene of 'unimaginable horror.' Some accounts claim she dismembered their bodies and hid the pieces throughout the house. Others say she displayed their remains as some kind of grotesque trophy.

Lyda was found days later, covered in blood, rocking back and forth and singing lullabies to herself. She was committed to an asylum, where she died shortly after. The house sat empty for years, its reputation already tainted by the butchery that had occurred within its walls.

But this was only the beginning.

After the Congelier murders, the house proved difficult to sell. The story of the axe murders had spread throughout Pittsburgh, and few wanted to live where such violence had occurred. The property sat vacant for years, falling into disrepair as the neighborhood around it changed.

Eventually, in the 1890s, the house was purchased at a steep discount by a railroad executive whose name has been lost to history. This man, according to local legend, was fascinated by the supernatural and the occult - interests that were surprisingly common among the upper classes during the Spiritualist movement of the late 19th century.

The railroad executive supposedly conducted séances in the Congelier House, attempting to contact the spirits of the murdered. Whether he succeeded in reaching the dead Congeliers or awakened something far worse is a matter of speculation. What is documented is that the executive's household began experiencing disturbing phenomena almost immediately.

Servants reported objects moving on their own, cold spots in rooms with roaring fires, and the sound of a woman singing lullabies in empty hallways. Several maids quit in terror, refusing to spend another night in the house. One reportedly went mad, claiming that 'something in the walls' was watching her.

The railroad executive himself began to change. Once gregarious and successful, he became withdrawn, obsessed with the house and its secrets. He was found dead in his study one morning, the apparent victim of a heart attack - though some whispered that the expression of terror frozen on his face suggested he had seen something that literally frightened him to death.

The most disturbing chapter in the Congelier House's history began in the early 1900s when it was rented by a man calling himself Dr. Adolph Brunrichter. Brunrichter claimed to be a scientist and physician, but his true nature was far more sinister.

Brunrichter lived alone in the house, rarely venturing out during the day but often seen at night, lurking around the neighborhood. Neighbors noticed strange lights in the windows, heard peculiar sounds, and smelled chemical odors emanating from the property. Some reported seeing Brunrichter carrying large bundles into the house after dark.

In 1901, a massive explosion rocked the Congelier House. When neighbors and authorities arrived, they discovered Brunrichter's true activities: he had been conducting grotesque medical experiments in the basement, including attempts to reanimate severed human heads using electricity. The explosion had occurred when one of his experimental apparatus malfunctioned.

Even more horrifying was the discovery of a young woman's headless body in the basement, along with evidence that Brunrichter had been keeping her head alive through some unknown means, subjecting it to his experiments. Additional human remains suggested this was not his first victim.

Brunrichter fled before he could be arrested, disappearing into the night and never seen again. Some say he died in the explosion and his body was simply never found. Others believe he escaped to continue his experiments elsewhere. A few even whisper that he made some kind of dark bargain with whatever evil resided in the Congelier House - that he didn't just live there, he served it.

The Brunrichter scandal made national news, cementing the Congelier House's reputation as a place of unspeakable evil. Ripley's Believe It or Not featured it as 'the most haunted house in America.' Yet somehow, the house remained standing, as if refusing to be destroyed.

After the Brunrichter incident, the Congelier House was converted into an apartment building - apparently, Pittsburgh's housing shortage was severe enough that people were willing to live even in an infamous murder house. The conversion divided the mansion into multiple units, bringing more families into contact with whatever darkness dwelled there.

Residents of the apartment building reported constant paranormal activity. Doors opened and closed on their own. Footsteps echoed in empty hallways. The temperature in certain rooms was always cold, regardless of the weather. Some tenants reported seeing apparitions - a woman with wild eyes carrying an axe, a headless figure wandering the basement, shadows that moved against the light.

Children who lived in the building were particularly affected. They complained of nightmares, of invisible friends who told them terrible things, of being touched by cold hands in the dark. Several families moved out after their children began exhibiting disturbing behavior - speaking in strange voices, knowing things they couldn't possibly know, displaying violent tendencies that appeared out of nowhere.

By the 1920s, the Congelier House had become a blight on the neighborhood. It was perpetually in disrepair, no matter how much maintenance was performed. Paint peeled, wood rotted, and a pervasive smell of decay hung over the property. Neighbors avoided walking past it, and the few remaining tenants were mostly transients who had nowhere else to go.

The most frequently reported apparition at the Congelier House was a woman in Victorian-era clothing, carrying an axe. This figure - presumably the ghost of Lyda Congelier - was seen both inside and outside the house, always with the same wild-eyed expression and blood-stained dress.

Some witnesses reported that she would appear suddenly, swinging the axe at them before vanishing. Others saw her standing at windows, staring out at the street with an expression of pure madness. A few claimed to have heard her singing lullabies in an off-key voice that sent chills down their spines.

What made this haunting particularly terrifying was its apparent malevolence. Unlike ghosts that simply repeat actions from the past, Lyda's spirit seemed aware of the living - and hostile toward them. Multiple residents reported being awakened by the sensation of cold hands around their throats, of being pushed down stairs, of hearing a woman's voice whispering threats in their ears.

The basement of the Congelier House was considered the most dangerous part of the building - a place where even the bravest feared to go. This was where Brunrichter had conducted his experiments, and where the headless remains of his victims had been found.

Tenants reported that the basement was always cold, even in summer, and that a foul smell seemed to emanate from its walls. Strange sounds came from below - mechanical humming, as if Brunrichter's equipment was still running, and occasionally, a woman's muffled screaming.

Those who ventured into the basement often emerged changed. Some reported seeing a headless figure standing in the corner, watching them despite having no eyes. Others felt an overwhelming compulsion to hurt themselves or others. One man allegedly walked into the basement and never came out - his body was never found, though the building was thoroughly searched.

The basement also seemed to be a focal point for the house's malevolent energy. Paranormal researchers who later studied the Congelier House theorized that whatever evil resided there was centered in the basement, perhaps connected to the ground itself or to the terrible acts that had been committed below.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the Congelier House was not its ghosts, but its apparent ability to influence the living. Time and again, people who lived in the house began behaving in ways they never had before - becoming violent, paranoid, obsessed.

The pattern was consistent enough to suggest something more than coincidence. Lyda Congelier had no history of violence before she butchered her husband and his mistress. The railroad executive was successful and stable before moving into the house. Even Brunrichter, for all his evil, may have been drawn to the house by something that recognized a kindred darkness in him.

Neighbors noticed that those who lived in the Congelier House often seemed different - that they would stop making eye contact, would mutter to themselves, would be seen at their windows at all hours of the night, staring into space. It was as if the house was slowly consuming them, feeding on their sanity and their souls.

Animals, it seemed, could sense the danger better than humans. Dogs would howl and strain at their leashes when walking past the property. Cats would hiss and arch their backs. Birds never landed on the roof or in the yard. Even insects seemed to avoid the place - a house that should have been infested with vermin was strangely, ominously empty of them.