13. The Murder of the Gustafson Family

Until the End of Crime

After suffering the tragic loss of their mother, Tina and Karen Bowen begin to encounter terrifying incidents around their house. The doorbell rings, but no one is there. Windows are cracked. Phone lines cut and burned. Knocking in the walls. Electrical panel covers flying across the room. The contents of their shed being strewn across the yard. And a silhouette illuminated in their dining room during a storm. No one believes the young girls, chalking up their experiences to active imaginations and acting out after the loss of their mother. That is, until their father brings them home one night, and they discover the house has every light turned on, radios and televisions all set to the same respective stations and turned up to top volume…What he finds leads to a nightmare for two small towns in Massachusetts.

Sources

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“Footsteps in the Attic,”Phrogging: Hider in My House. Lifetime, Season 1, Episode 2. A&E Television Networks, 2022.
“Phrogging.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 15 Sept. 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrogging.
“Gustafson Murders.” The Boston Globe, 7 Dec. 1987, Newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-boston-globe-gustafson-murders/34908982/.
“Police Study Music Videos in Townsend Slayings.” UPI, 7 Dec. 1987, https://www.upi.com/amp/Archives/1987/12/07/Police-study-music-videos-in-Townsend-slayings/5739565851600/.
“Daniel LaPlante: The Real-Life Horror.” Talk Murder With Me, 3 Feb. 2021, https://www.talkmurderwithme.com/blog/2021/2/3/daniel-laplante.

“Priscilla Gustafson, Abigail Gustafson, William Gustafson, and Unborn Baby.” Teen Killers, https://teenkillers.org/memorials/massachusetts-victims/priscilla-gustafson-abigail-gustafson-william-gustafson-and-unborn-baby/.