Connection to the spiritual

November 27, 2009 Times Leader

By Andrew M. Seder aseder@timesleader.com
Times Leader Staff Writer

Lauri Moore said she’s had a connection with the spiritual world all her life, but it wasn’t until she was in her mid-20s that she fully gained an appreciation for her gift. “The Haunted” The 10-week series began Sunday and continues through Dec. 10. It features ghostly stories and paranormal investigations of places where animals interact with the unseen. It airs at 10 p.m. on Animal Planet.

Alissa Timko and Katie Christopher investigate a potential spiritual presence at the Montrose Inn. The NEPA Paranormal members appear on Sunday’s ‘The Haunted’ on Animal Planet.

Twenty years later those gifts have helped land her a radio call-in show in the Poconos and now two appearances on an Animal Planet series about haunted places. Moore, a West Pittston native who now resides in the Lehigh Valley, and a group of local paranormal investigators will be featured Sunday night on “The Haunted.”

The group was contacted by the production company behind the series and asked to investigate Stemie’s Place, a restaurant on Route 611 just south of Easton.

“Of course we jumped at it,” said Katie Christopher, 24, of Wilkes-Barre, one of NEPA Paranormal’s investigators.

In addition to Moore and Christopher, other members of the investigative team that went to Easton were Bob Christopher of Wilkes-Barre and Alissa Timko of Luzerne.

Moore, 42, who graduated from Wyoming Area High School in 1985 and King’s College in 1989, said her first foray into television was “a lot of fun.”

“It’s much more detailed than radio is,” she added. She called the investigation in Easton a success and said she has no doubt the restaurant is haunted by the ghost of ’”Johnny the Wop,” who was shot and killed in the building’s basement in July 1928. The investigation and filming occurred on the anniversary of his death, and Moore said “we came up with so much material and so much evidence to prove that the gangster was there haunting the place.”

Katie Christopher said the investigation was interesting and from the moment she walked into the eatery she sensed something wasn’t right.

“We experienced a lot of neat things,” the 2003 G.A.R. High School graduate said, stopping short of revealing them. She said she didn’t want to ruin the program for anyone.

Though she claims she doesn’t have any kind of a sixth sense, she said she has seen enough paranormal or unexplainable events to get a feeling when a spirit is present. She said she’s attended 50 different places purported to be haunted and this one was by far the most haunted.

While the episode that airs Sunday night at 10 is the only one the NEPA Paranormal group was invited to, Moore was asked to head to Lebanon with a Wyoming County paranormal group in September and November to investigate a haunted house.

Wyoming County-based Pennsylvania Paranormal Group joined Moore for that investigation, but no air date has been released for that episode. She said she discovered a portal to the spirit world in the home that allows spirits to come and go.

Moore has yet to see the final product of either episode and said she’ll tune in Sunday night to see if she made it onto the small screen.

She compares her abilities to John Edwards of television’s “Crossing Over” fame and said she has an ability to communicate with spirits and to help them cross over to the other side.

“I’m not a fortune teller,” she said. Instead she can see things about people and “I tell them where the energy in their life is going. It’s up to them to decide what they want to do with that information.”

Christopher said she has no doubts about Moore’s ability and enjoys watching her in action.

She said NEPA Paranormal is made up of a lot of interesting people who do this work mostly as a hobby. She said they’re strictly volunteers and the kind of exposure they will get from being on the television show is priceless.

“It’s really about getting our name out there. This is our passion. This is what we love to do,” Christopher said.

The group will gather at the home of one of its members Sunday night for a party and a viewing of the episode.