“The three women cursed Wood and the people who had driven them from their home.”

The Witch’s Castle was a stone house that once sat on a hill overlooking the Ohio River in Utica, Indiana. The property was also known as Mistletoe Falls, and over the years it picked up some pretty disturbing stories.

One of the oldest stories connected to the area involves three sisters who were supposedly living on the land before Utica was established. The women were said to be Métis and were living there when James Noble Wood came to the area and claimed the land. According to the story, the sisters refused to leave, and things eventually turned violent.

The story says Wood and a group of men forced the women from their home, tied them up, and put them on a raft. They were then pushed out into the Ohio River and sent downstream toward the Falls of the Ohio.

This is where the story gets really dark.

As the raft moved away from shore, the three women supposedly cursed Wood and the people who had driven them from their home. They were said to have promised that the land would never prosper and that something bad would always follow the town.

There isn’t historical proof that the women were actually tied to a raft and sent down the river, but the story has been told for years. And once a place gets a story like that attached to it, it seems like more stories always follow. Some believe that this is where the origins for the Disney Film. “Hocus Pocus” originated.

Another legend says that three women later lived on the property and were believed by locals to be witches. They kept to themselves and were said to do strange things around the house. Rumors started spreading about occult activity, strange rituals, and even human remains being found around the property.

Eventually, according to the legend, the townspeople had enough. The three women were supposedly killed and buried in the cellar of their home. Some versions of the story say the house was then burned.

It is hard to know how much of this actually happened. The stone house that became known as Mistletoe Falls was not an old colonial castle, despite what some of the stories make it sound like. The property dates to the 1900s, and the stone house was eventually destroyed by fire. But by then, the Witch’s Castle name had already stuck.

And people who visited the ruins had their own stories.

There were reports of hearing voices, footsteps, and children laughing around the property. Some people claimed they saw a woman or a child walking through the woods. Others said they felt like they were being watched when they were near the ruins.

Then the property became part of a real-life tragedy.

In 1992, twelve-year-old Shanda Sharer was taken by four teenage girls who told her that a friend was waiting for her at the Witch’s Castle. They brought her to the abandoned property before taking her to other locations. Shanda was later murdered in one of the most horrific crimes in Indiana’s history. (The Murderers have since been released)

After that, the ghost stories only seemed to grow.

People began saying they could hear a young girl crying around the property. Others claimed to hear footsteps in the ruins when no one else was there. There were also stories of seeing figures in places where there was no longer a house.

The Witch’s Castle is nothing like the place described in the old stories. The house is gone, and only pieces of the property remain. But the stories haven’t gone anywhere.

The house is gone, but the stories remain, and some say the spirits of those who died there never left the property.