The Crying Boy
Late one night in 1988, the Amos family home in Heswall, England burned down. Not too much later, a home in Bradford, England also burned down. The only common denominator in these two isolated cases was that at each house the only things not charred by the rampant fire were pictures of the same little boy, with a tear running down his cheek. The head of the Yorkshire Fire Brigade told journalists that they kept finding these unblemished portraits in houses devastated by fire. More recently, the same picture was found in a Dublin, Ireland home after it burned down; again, the painting came out unscathed. The Spanish artist had painted a series of these “Crying Boy” portraits, yet it was always the same boy who appeared in each house.
Rumor has it that the occultist and ex-schoolmaster from Devon, England, George Mallory, found the artist in Madrid, calling himself Franchot Seville. He was a postcard artist who also went by the names of Bruno Amadio, Bragolin, Giovanni Bragolin and J. Bragolin. The artist had taken an interest in a small, homeless boy who never spoke and began painting him. It is said that a local priest noticed the interest the artist had in the boy, and related a story. The priest said that the boy’s house had burned down and had killed the boy’s parents. More so, every home the boy slept in inevitably burned to the ground. He advised the artist to keep his distance from the sunken-eyed child, but he dismissed the priest’s warnings as superstitious nonsense. However, later the artist’s studio burned to the ground, destroying his work. He blamed little Don Bonillo, who ran off and has never since been seen (though some rumors say he died in a car accident at the ate of 19).
From 1985 on, 40 – 50 other cases of fire seemed to have succumbed to the “curse of the Crying Boy,” at least that’s what’s been published. The painting, called Scarf Boy, was one of the first to be mass produced in the United Kingdom, but it seems that the portrait in question only becomes jinxed if the owner is aware of the curse. 1,2
The Haunted EBay Painting
In February of 2000, an anonymous seller on EBay listed an allegedly haunted painting by Bill Stoneham called Hands Resist Him. The painted said the portrait was painted in 1972 in Chicago and the little boy is himself. The hands behind him are other lives, he says, the glass the thin veil that separates this world from the dream world, and the girl doll beside of him, his guide through that world. The item listed had the following description:
“WHEN WE RECEIVED THIS PAINTING, WE THOUGHT IT WAS REALLY GOOD ART. A " PICKER " HAD FOUND IT ABANDONED BEHIND AN OLD BREWERY. AT THE TIME WE WONDERED A LITTLE WHY A SEEMINGLY PERFECTLY FINE PAINTING WOULD BE DISCARDED LIKE THAT. ( TODAY WE DON'T !!! ) ONE MORNING OUR 4 AND 1/2 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER CLAIMED, THAT THE CHILDREN IN THE PICTURE WERE FIGHTING, AND COMING INTO THE ROOM DURING THE NIGHT. NOW, I DON'T BELIEVE IN UFOS OR ELVIS BEING ALIVE, BUT MY HUSBAND WAS ALARMED. TO MY AMUSEMENT HE SET UP A MOTION TRIGGERED CAMERA FOR THE NIGHTS. AFTER THREE NIGHTS THERE WERE PICTURES.THE LAST TWO PICTURES SHOWN ARE FROM THAT 'STAKEOUT'. AFTER SEEING THE BOY SEEMINGLY EXITING THE PAINTING UNDER THREAT, WE DECIDED, THE PAINTING HAS TO GO.PLEASE JUDGE FOR YOURSELF. --- BEFORE YOU DO, PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. ----WARNING: DO NOT BID ON THIS PAINTING IF YOU ARE SUSCEPTIBLE TO STRESS RELATED DISEASE, FAINT OF HEART OR ARE UNFAMILIAR WITH SUPERNATURAL EVENTS. BY BIDDING ON THIS PAINTING, YOU AGREE TO RELEASE THE OWNERS OF ALL LIABILITY IN RELATION TO THE SALE OR ANY EVENTS HAPPENING AFTER THE SALE, THAT MIGHT BE CONTRIBUTED TO THIS PAINTING. THIS PAINTING MAY OR MAY NOT POSESS SUPERNATURAL POWERS, THAT COULD IMPACT OR CHANGE YOUR LIFE. HOWEVER, BY BIDDING YOU AGREE TO EXCLUSIVELY BID ON THE VALUE OF THE ARTWORK, WITH DISREGARD TO THE LAST TWO PHOTOS FEATURED IN THIS AUCTION, AND HOLD THE OWNERS HARMLESS IN REGARD TO THEM AND THEIR IMPACT, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED.------------ NOW THAT WE GOT THIS OUT OF THE WAY, ONE QUESTION TO YOU EBAYERS. WE WANT OUR HOUSE TO BE BLESSED AFTER THE PAINTING IS GONE, DOES ANYBODY KNOW, WHO IS QUALIFIED TO DO THAT? THE SIZE OF THE PAINTING IS 24 BY 36 INCHES, SO IT IS RATHER LARGE. AS I HAVE HAD SEVERAL QUESTIONS, HERE THE FOLLOWING ANSWERS. THERE WAS NO ODOR LEFT BEHIND IN THE ROOM. THERE WERE NO VOICES, OR THE SMELL OF GUNPOWDER, NO FOODPRINTS OR STRANGE FLUIDS ON THE WALL. TO DETER QUESTIONS IN THIS DIRECTION, THERE ARE NO GHOSTS IN THIS WORLD , NO SUPERNATURAL POWERS, THIS IS JUST A PAINTING, AND MOST THESE THINGS HAVE AN EXPLANATION, IN THIS CASE PROBABLY A FLUKE LIGHT EFFECT. I ENCOURAGE YOU TO BID ON THE ARTWORK, AND CONSIDER THE LAST TWO PHOTOGRAPHS AS PURE ENTERTAINMENT, AND PLEASE DO NOT TAKE THEM INTO CONSIDERATION, WHEN BIDDING. AS WE THINK IT IS A GOOD IDEA TO BLESS ANY HOUSE, WE STILL WELCOME INPUT INTO THAT PROCEDURE.”
While at auction, insinuations began flying. Some people said that they had gotten ill or had passed out after viewing the picture, and that when some people tried to print the picture, their printer would have unexplained errors.
The final bid was just over $1,000. 3, 4, 5
The Headless Ghost Painting
In 1994, James Kidd had one of his photographs on display in Tombstone, Arizona. He wanted to create an interesting picture, so he took a picture of an old stagecoach, didn’t wind the film so he could get a double exposure, and then took a picture of his painting. When it was developed, he saw a headless man standing on a log in the left of the painting. He swore it had not been there when he took the picture, and that Kodak had examined the picture but could not rule it out as a fraud.
He displayed this new anomaly in his art exhibit, and artist Laura P. asked if she could take a picture of it so she could paint it in her home in Sierra Vista, Arizona; he agreed. When she finished the painting, she took it to her office. Three days later, she was asked to come by and pick it up. Fellow coworkers said that each morning the painting would be crooked, though it had been straightened the night before, and that papers were found in a mess in the office every morning. In 1995, the family has moved into a new home in Tennessee, but their hearts sunk when they found their garage was leaking. They contracted help, but each time the professionals could not find the source of the leak. Finally, Laura’s husband realized that the painting was against the wall to the garage; when the painting was moved, the leaks stopped. Things began to move in their home, a disturbances were reported in people’s homes who had just looked at the picture; the front door would also be knocked on, though the dogs seemed not to hear the commotion. 6
