Sept. 23, 2025

Haunted Histories: Amy Bruni on Ghosts & the Human Side of Haunting

Haunted Histories: Amy Bruni on Ghosts & the Human Side of Haunting

Zoinks, gang! We’ve got a bonus episode—and it’s a big one. Shane is joined by Amy Bruni, ghost hunter, author, and host of Haunted Road. You’ve seen her on Ghost Hunters and Kindred Spirits, but tonight, she’s right here in the Mystery Machine with us (okay, metaphorically).

Amy and Shane swap ghost stories that sound straight out of a Scooby-Doo adventure:

👻 A window ghost nicknamed “Mr. Green Jeans.”

📸 A skeptic who mocked the spirits—until a picture frame floated.

💡 The surprising rules that keep ghost hunting ethical and real.

And here’s the best clue of all: you can catch Amy live on stage this fall!

📅 October 7 at 7 PM — Eagles Theatre, Wabash, Indiana.

🎟️ Get your tickets here

If you can’t make it to Indiana, don’t panic! Amy’s haunting theaters across the U.S. Check her tour schedule.

More about Amy: amybruni.com.

So grab your flashlight, keep your Scooby Snacks close, and let’s solve the mystery of what lingers after true crime.



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WEBVTT

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[SPEAKER_01]: Wabash and Deanna, the first city in the world to light up the night with electricity.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But not everything here glowed.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Just a block from the historic Egos Theatre, a different crowd gathered once, to watch justice carried out the end of a rope.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Every light casts a shadow, and sometimes those shadows stick around.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Tonight on Mystery Ink, I'm joined by the Legendary, Amy Brooney.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Ghost Hunter, author, and host of Haunted Road.

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[SPEAKER_01]: We'll swap stories of Haunted History, and how to tell the difference between a ghost and a drafty hallway.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So Amy, have you ever been to Wabash before?

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[SPEAKER_00]: That's a very good question.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm at the point in my travels where I can't remember everywhere.

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[SPEAKER_00]: There's a very good chance I have.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But sometimes I have to Google myself to see if I've been somewhere or I'll look in my photos on my own and be like, is there any photo here tagged in that town?

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[SPEAKER_00]: But I know I've been in the vicinity because I come back to that area every year.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I will tell you that when you get to a bash, you will fall in love with a really small city, very small.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But within two streets, there's just a lot of history that has happened here.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It was the firstologically divided city in the world.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, to go along with the show that you're doing here, there's been a lot of murder as well.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's interesting.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, one of the very first serial killers happened.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Really?

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's a crazy story.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It's a crazy story.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And in fact, he was found and he is hung outside the courthouse, which is just a block from where the Ego's theater is, which is where you're going to be.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Which brings us to Amy's first ghost story, the kind that changes everything.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We lived in a haunted house in Alameda, California, and when I was eight years old, I saw a full-bodied apparition of a man standing outside a second story window, where there's no way someone could physically be standing.

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[SPEAKER_00]: He would have to be floating.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember I ran to get my mom, and I just said, well, there's a man, and he's floating outside the window, and my mom just very matter exactly said, oh, yeah, he's a ghost.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I've seen him too.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I call him Mr. Greengeans.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Was he a kind ghost?

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, he was.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The only time we had, and you think, even remotely sort of negatives happen in the house was we had the neighbors over for dinner with their son.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember my parents kind of saying to this man and his wife,

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we have a ghost here and the husband was like a total non believer.

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[SPEAKER_00]: He just kept saying absolutely not.

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[SPEAKER_00]: That's preposterous.

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[SPEAKER_00]: That's ridiculous.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And at that moment, a picture that we had on the wall just kind of came up and off the wall and hovered there for a second and then crashed to the floor.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And that man and his wife left the house that night.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Very quickly, they finished up dinner and they were just kind of left never set foot in our house again.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Ghost hunters are part scientists, part storyteller and Amy's got rules.

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[SPEAKER_00]: confirmation bias, which a lot of people do in the paranormal, they want something to be ghostly so badly that they'll overlook just very common and normal explanations for what's happening.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And then when you have television shows that their one goal is to, you know, scare the heck out of people at home or make them think that everything they're encountering is paranormal.

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[SPEAKER_00]: those choose things together.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It's it's not going any service to what I do, but which is I want to realist about this.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I won't even say that goes to real 100%.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I am very much a like, I know that weird things happen.

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[SPEAKER_00]: My belief is that these are, you know, ghosts and spirits from people who have passed on, but I'm never going to say that to you absolutely because I can barely prove they exist, right?

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[SPEAKER_00]: But I think that a lot of times, especially now, is like YouTube and TikToks and all these things, they're just praying on people's want for things to be paranormal so badly.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why I think so many people could watch and can watch Kindred, who just wants something a little more on the level.

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[SPEAKER_00]: There can be absolutely no embellishments, no trickery, no fakery.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I, of course, wanted to bring up our mutual friendship coffee who joins candid spirits as a psychic medium.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm curious what your experience is with chip, and then also maybe with other psychic mediums in that field.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm very, very cheesy about the psychic mediums that I work with.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Now the first thing I always tell people is that we would never base an entire investigation on a psychic's impressions and chip knows that any psychic that works with us know that.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Like the best psychics know that they are soluble and that they are just one piece of the puzzle.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But people really do fall back on the psychic thing.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Like even my house right now I live in a 300 year old house.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Get you from there like he's going to magically solve the mystery of his ear, you know, and but there are just certain psychics that I really trust in ship is one of them.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I've had some really compelling experiences with him.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I've known him for, you know,

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[SPEAKER_00]: a long time, 20 years probably.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I've been working a lot with medium Sarah Lamos recently.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I really enjoy her and so the good psychics are the ones that are really willing to be like a piece of the puzzle and help you figure out the mystery.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And so yeah, I've worked with many over the years and my list is pretty small.

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[SPEAKER_01]: If you're anywhere near Indiana, you can join Amy Live on October 7th at the Eagles Theater in downtown Wabash.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Ghost stories, true crimes, and the creepy artifacts she travels with.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Links are in the show notes.

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[SPEAKER_01]: If Netflix binging isn't spooky enough, Amy's tour takes ghost stories off the screen and into the room.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I want to ask you, how did you come from kindergarten spirits to shows like this?

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[SPEAKER_01]: Because going into it, I don't know what to expect.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I watched the trailer.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's 30 seconds and it sounds like there's some true crime stuff that may be happening as well.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I obviously am a huge research nerd and I started touring in 2019, just doing talks in the fall about ghosts and hauntings and the tour has just grown every year to more and more cities and this year, you know, my family and I, you know, we were just like I'm just going to go all in.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I think I have 28 cities total.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Every year I change the talk up a little bit and so last year I wrote a book called Food to Die For and it's a recipe book of recipes from haunted locations all over the country right and that book is done really well people love it which is great and so I wrote a follow-up this last year that's coming out next year called cuisine to kill for and it's a recipe

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[SPEAKER_00]: So I've been fully into true crime hauntings for the last year and so I thought I'm going to talk about this this year and so basically I talked a bit about the paranormal and then we visit some really famous crimes in America that have resulted in hauntings and we talk about the story of the crime.

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[SPEAKER_00]: then I kind of go into like what's happened there experiences people have had and then I show evidence from each location and so it's a whole evening of that and then at the end people can just ask me any questions about anything.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We'll ask 20 or 30 minutes is all like we just talk about spooky stuff together.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I also bring a lot of my haunted artists act with me so you'll get to see some dolls with interesting stories I have a painting by Ed Warren that I travel with.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I have some old Luigi boards and shim old photos and and so it's such a nice kind of atmosphere and you know it's you love fall and ghosts and true crime or any of those three things I really think that this

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[SPEAKER_01]: From Mr. Green Jeans in the window, to a painting by Ed Warren, Amy Brooney's stories prove one thing.

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[SPEAKER_01]: The line between history and haunting is paper thin.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Catch Amy on her haunted road podcast and see her live at the Equal Steater on October 7.

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[SPEAKER_01]: All the links are waiting in her show notes.

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[SPEAKER_01]: This is Mystery Ink.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Until next time, keep your flashlights charged.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Your recorders rolling.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And remember, sometimes the best mysteries are hiding in plain sight.