The Case of the Ouija Obsession

This casefile was compiled by Alva Keel through witness interviews and observations conducted by SQ.

      Ms. Santos and I were contacted by Mrs. Margaret Keller of the Albany, New York area, because she believed her deceased daughter, Daphne, was trying to reach her through a Ouija board. In general, Ouija boards have a negative reputation for being dangerous, that to use one means certain possession by a malevolent spirit. This case demonstrates that while they can be harmful to the user in some ways, they are merely tools of contact that can have beneficial potential.
      The first thing we did upon arrival in Albany was to conduct interviews with Mr. and Mrs. Keller. While Mrs. Keller cooperated fully, Mr. Keller showed nothing but hostility and skepticism. He expressed anger over the fact that his wife was "wasting" money on hiring us, and did not like us being there in the least. Ms. Santos attempted to interview him, but he refused to speak with her because, as he put it, his daughter was dead and "that's that."
      Mrs. Keller, however, had a great deal more to say. She told me all about how her daughter Daphne, a vibrant 16-year-old girl on the dance team and flag corps of her high school, in the span of six months became depressed, withdrawn, and an insomniac, obsessed with her Ouija board. As we stood in Daphne's room, which Mrs. Keller had kept in the exact condition the teenager had left it, she showed me Daphne's Ouija board, the piles of notes she had made from its use, and a haunting little doll named Ophelia. Then she told me everything she knew about how her daughter had changed in those six months, and how she had felt powerless to stop it.
      The Ouija board was purchased for Daphne at a garage sale in the spring of 1998. Mrs. Keller thought of it as a toy. Her daughter loved it because it was so old - Daphne said at the time that the board was "loveworn," with ragged corners and faded lettering, much like a well-loved stuffed animal. She felt honoured to use a board that someone before her had enjoyed so much. I asked her if she remembered where the garage sale had taken place or if the family giving the sale had told her anything significant about the board, and Mrs. Keller replied that they had said that it belonged to a great aunt who had died when she was just a child. The family had kept the board all those years, finally deciding to sell it, though it was probably an antique. In fact, it was - the board is a Ouija Novelty Company board that was manufactured in the early 1900's.
      At first, Daphne played with the Ouija board in the expected way, inviting her friends over for slumber parties where they consulted the board on all of their romantic and school-related concerns. Mrs. Keller estimated that it took about a month for Daphne to stop sharing the board and start using it alone. Something happened that upset the teenager so much that she refused to sleep for three nights, missing two days of school. To explain this, Daphne described how she had used the board alone for the first time, and made contact with a spirit named Ophelia Chase, who knew everything about her. The experience had thoroughly "freaked [her] out." Mrs. Keller thought at the time that it was just a story Daphne made up to get out of a test that week.
      Unfortunately, the sleepless nights returned. Daphne started using the Ouija board again. Mrs. Keller hoped that it was just a phase, but it went on for weeks; her daughter began skipping school and barely passed two of her classes for her last six-week period. During the summer, Daphne went away to dance camp, which gave her mother hope that she was finally out of her Ouija phase, but a few weeks into the camp, the coordinator called to tell her that this was not true. Daphne had brought the board up to camp with her and had stayed up almost every night, against camp rules, playing with it. Her cabin mates had finally reported her because her obsession with the board was beginning to frighten them. They were all losing sleep to the board now, and it was showing in their performance at competition. Mrs. Keller drove to the camp to pick up the board, where she had a stern talk with Daphne over her behavior. The teen performed better once the board was gone. She finished out the camp, even winning a trophy at the final competition.
      When Daphne came home, she and her mother had a talk about the Ouija board. The girl explained that her conversations with Ophelia had escalated, that they were very important and precious to her. Daphne claimed that Ophelia was herself in a past life, who had died when she was only ten, and had lived in the early 1900's. There had been another life in between Ophelia and Daphne, but Ophelia was chosen as the "messenger" spirit. Mrs. Keller did ask what Ophelia's important messages were about, but her daughter became elusive at that moment, obviously wishing to keep that information private.
      Mrs. Keller and her child struck up a deal - if Daphne started sleeping again, she would be allowed to use the board in moderation. This arrangement worked for about two weeks, until Mrs. Keller noticed bags under her daughter's eyes. Soon after, she began carrying the board around the house with her because, as she claimed, the board would emit a subtle vibration when Ophelia was ready to talk. It went so far that Daphne utilized holes that had curiously been punched in the top corners of the board, tied a string through them, and strung the board around her neck so she could easily keep it with her at all times. The parents decided it was time to bring their daughter to a psychiatrist.
      The doctor surmised that it would be detrimental to take the board away abruptly, that a gradual weaning would be a much better method. In the meantime, she had Daphne draw pictures of how Ophelia had described herself. Daphne did her one better by taking an old doll and transforming her into Ophelia, complete with caramel blonde hair, old-fashioned dress, sleepy eyes, and her own little Ouija board strung around her neck. (The only detail the teen got wrong was giving Ophelia a Parker Brothers style Ouija, which were not manufactured until the 1960's.) Daphne explained that Ophelia had been obsessed with her own board, just like she was, using it to speak to her own past life messenger. This is where the idea had come from to hang the board around her neck in the first place. Although Ophelia's miniature board was the wrong style, it did have a watermark added to the back of it to make it look as much like Ophelia's as possible - the child had spilled a drink on the board, leaving a mark roughly in the shape of a fuzzy candy cane.
      In Daphne's conversations with the psychiatrist, the phrase, "Follow Me" came up repeatedly; this had been the first thing Ophelia ever said through the board. Ophelia had a very urgent message for Daphne, but the teen still would not tell anyone exactly what that message entailed. Instead, she spent most of her time with the psychiatrist describing Ophelia's house, and what her life had been like in the early 1900's.
      The Keller couple believed they had successfully weaned Daphne off the Ouija board by the time school started in the fall. Unfortunately, within weeks, Mrs. Keller received a call from the school that her daughter had been skipping classes - she was caught on campus, hiding in an unoccupied classroom, using the board. Daphne and her mother had a major argument that night where Mrs. Keller forbade her from ever using the board again. The teenager stormed out of the house.
      Daphne ran away for two days; when she finally came home, she was filthy and acted very nervous. She refused to explain where she had been nor why she was so dirty, as if she'd been digging in a garden. Mrs. Keller tried to get her to talk, but Daphne refused, and continued to avoid the house as much as possible. At the end of the week, Daphne was crossing a street, and was sadly hit by a car, dying of her extensive injuries. The driver of the car hit the teen at a high rate of speed, then left the scene of the accident, and was not at that time apprehended.
      In the weeks following Daphne's death, Mrs. Keller noticed that the Ophelia doll and the Ouija board moved about the room on their own accord. Her husband swore that he was not doing it. Often, when Mrs. Keller would pass the room her daughter once occupied, the doll would fall off the shelf, as if someone was trying to get her attention. The Ophelia doll would also frequently be positioned sitting next to the board on Daphne's bed, pointing to the planchette. Mrs. Keller finally tried to use the Ouija board herself to see if she could make contact with her deceased child. All she could get out of the board was the repetition of the phrase, "Follow Me." This is when Mrs. Keller contacted SQ; she felt Daphne was trying to reach her with a very important message, and perhaps we were the only ones who could bring it out of her.
      Ms. Santos and I worked with the Ouija to see what we could glean out of Daphne. Because we have more experience in these matters, we were able to take her beyond just telling us, "Follow Me." After several sessions that lasted a total of just under six hours, we had reached not only Daphne, but Ophelia, and three other past lives. All revealed and confirmed the big secret that they had been passing on from life to life - that this soul was caught up in a deadly cycle. The cycle involved being murdered by the father in each of their lives, and each time, he escaped punishment. The death always appeared to be an accident; even if the father was suspected somehow, there was never enough evidence to convict him. Either that, or the past incarnation of Daphne had simply disappeared and was presumed dead. Ophelia contacted Daphne in an attempt to end this cycle in some way. We checked out the names and locations of these various incarnations and found that all of these girls had once existed. Each had died in an accident or under suspicious circumstances. Ophelia Chase had been one of the victims of a mysterious disappearance, and was thought to be dead; this had happened when she was only ten.
      The week before Daphne had been struck by the car, Ophelia somehow knew it was going to happen, so she had to do everything she could to convince her all of this was true, and that Daphne was in danger. She gave the girl specific directions to the location of her hidden grave ("Follow Me"). Daphne had found the grave and started digging, hence the reason why she kept coming home dirty. This is also why Daphne spent so much time in that last week away from home - she was terrified her father would kill her. Ms. Santos and I asked for these directions, and followed them to a grave deep in the woods that had been partially dug up; subsequent DNA tests proved these bones were the remains of Ophelia Chase. She had been killed by a violent blow to the head. Unfortunately, Ophelia's father cannot be brought to justice for the murder she claimed he committed, because he died long ago. He was, ironically, run over by a school bus.
      Daphne then gave us enough information to lead us to evidence in her own home that proved her father had hired a hit man to kill her. It had to look like an accident so he could collect on the hefty insurance policy he had taken out on his daughter. Once this evidence was turned over to the police, Mr. Keller confessed to the plot, and told the police the name of the hit man, who was also arrested. Both were eventually convicted of their crimes, though Mr. Keller struck a deal with the court and avoided the maximum sentence.
      Through our efforts, Ophelia Chase's family was finally able to put her to rest in the family cemetery plot. The last time Ms. Santos and I made contact with Daphne, she thanked us for ending the cycle, for although she had been murdered, at least her father had not gotten away with the heinous crime. Now her next incarnation would be free of this cycle of violence and deception. Daphne told her mother she loved her and that she was sorry she had not felt comfortable enough to confide these secrets while she was still alive, but that she thought such a wild story told to her through a Ouija board would never be believed. She requested that her mother move on and try to start a new life. Mrs. Keller showed amazing strength in the face of not only losing her daughter, but also her husband, as well. She decided to keep Daphne's trophies. Ms. Santos was asked to take the disturbed Ophelia doll, while I was asked to take the Ouija board. These were grim reminders of Daphne's demise, and so we agreed to take them away. The Ophelia doll serves as a "mascot" of sorts for our website because she so aptly demonstrates the duality of the paranormal - it is not all bad, but it is not all good, either. This is why her photograph and her signature phrase, "Follow Me," appear so prominently on the site.
      I realized after we arrived back in Boston that some of the suspicions I had during the case were true - that the family who had claimed Ophelia Chase's remains was the same family that had sold the Ouija board to Mrs. Keller. In fact, we had gone by this house where the garage sale was held as a follow-up to the case; the house looked just as Ophelia Chase had described her home to Daphne. This was all right in the teenager's notes. Ophelia was the great aunt the family had mentioned. At this time, I turned over Daphne's Ouija board and found the candy cane-shaped watermark. Daphne receiving the same board that had been used by one of her past incarnations was all a part of breaking the cycle.
      The Ophelia doll and this Ouija board now sit in a storage room in the SQ office. They serve as reminders of how the Ouija board can be not only a dangerous gateway into the human soul, but also, at certain times, its saviour.
      This case is closed.

Images of the Ophelia doll: Ophelia 1 | Ophelia 2 | Close-Up

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