Kitsie Duncan Interviews with Susan Leighton for Crash Palace
If you have ever attended a horror or popular culture convention, Kitsie Duncan is a familiar face. She is the owner of Celeb Photo Ops. By day, she is a talented photographer of movie/television stars and their fans. By night, she is a paranormal investigator and truth seeker.
For years, Kitsie has been the host of the hit Amazon Prime reality series, Oddity Files and its companion podcast. Recently, the industrious Kitsie Duncan was contacted by Beyond the Fray Publishing to write about her experiences with the supernatural. Her book, I’d Rather Talk to Dead People is an engaging read focusing on her personal spiritual journey as well as her ghost hunting adventures.
I was fortunate enough to sit down (virtually) with the author to talk about her latest effort as well as her many projects including an upcoming indie horror feature entitled, Window with a View. Welcome to the Crash Palace interview with Kitsie Duncan…
Living with Ghosts
Crash Palace: Hi, Kitsie. It’s a pleasure speaking with you. Before we discuss your new book, I’d Rather Talk to Dead People, did you always want to be a writer? How did this particular project take shape?
Kitsie Duncan: I was bad at everything in school but writing. That was where I excelled. My imagination has always been a wonderful thing, whether I liked it or not. When I was in high school, I wanted to be Murphy Brown when I grew up. That’s before I knew that somebody else wrote the stories for the news anchors.
I wanted to deliver something to people, if that makes any sense. Writing is what I was good at. I love to read…I just never thought in a million years that it would ever happen. Why would someone want to read about something I did? Then I discovered the paranormal and ten years later I get a text from Dave Schrader (host of The Holzer Files on Travel Channel) saying, “Hey! Have you ever thought about writing a book?” I responded with “Well, not lately, but why?” He said, “Well, I have some people that I would love for you to talk to…” which turned out to be Beyond the Fray Publishing. They asked me, “Can you write?” I explained to them that I could because I wrote stories for my podcast but I’m not your average author, that’s for sure.
They had to fix a lot of errors before we went to press. What I like about writing is this book is literally a look inside my head. How often can you give people that perspective? Yeah, it’s terrifying and daunting from start to end but now that it’s out, I am overwhelmed but elated at the same time.
CP: In your novel, you talk about growing up in a haunted house but you weren’t really aware of anything unusual until you had a particularly unnerving episode with a Ouija board. Tell us what happened.
KD: When I was in high school, my friend and I decided to do a session during the day on my back porch. We weren’t expecting anything and then the planchette moved! I knew it wasn’t me and it wasn’t my friend. Some of the things that the board told us came true. I ended up marrying my high school boyfriend and I ended up divorcing him. The next morning, I found out it was legit when I was awakened from my slumber with a very loud, rough voice in my ear saying, “GET OUT!” How clichéd can you be, ghost? Come on! It scared the shit out of me. I woke my friend up and we decided we had to get rid of the board right away.
We took it a few blocks from my house and tried running over the planchette in my friend’s little Plymouth Horizon and it wouldn’t break! Of course, we’re freaking out. Finally, we just threw it in the trash can.
Embracing the Odd
CP: After going on investigations for a while with friends, you created your paranormal team, Oddity Files. How did that come to fruition? Was it a natural progression to your Amazon Prime series?
KD: It was a natural progression. Towards the end before we narrowed the group down to Clayton, myself and my son, Carter, we would have groups of fifteen on investigations. I loved it because my friends were coming along. However, it was just too much and I felt it was hindering our potential to get evidence.
So, Clayton and I just sat down and he said, “What if we tried this? Just me and you. Let’s bring Carter along as the cameraman and see what happens?” That’s how it started and we were blown away. Our energies together, believing in what we were doing and being open minded to listen to what the spirits were trying to tell us is why we were able to get evidence.
CP: Let’s fast forward to your investigation at Culbertson Mansion. It would appear that you were just starting to feel your superpower (as you call it) as a medium. On this venture, you dealt with several interesting events particularly with your spirit box. You have an entity named Walter that is attached to that piece of equipment. For our readers, explain what that particular device does and why you think Walter was drawn to it?
KD: A spirit box is my favorite piece of ghost hunting equipment. It is an old-school hand-held AM-FM radio with an antenna on it and a digital readout on the front that shows you the stations that you are playing through.
The spirit box scans through the channels at different speeds. Entities are able to take white noise and bits and pieces of sound coming through the radio stations and manipulate it into a “voice” to answer questions. This enables investigators to have a real time conversation with them.
Does it work that way for everybody? Probably not. For me, I have had legit real time conversations with people who are not in the room with me that I believe are spirits from the other side for hours at a time via this thing.
Walter came to us at Jailhouse Pizza in Brandenburg, Kentucky. It was Clayton’s very first investigation. I had left him upstairs with John, another investigator. The two of them were having a blast and all of a sudden, the spirit box out of nowhere says Clayton’s name.
So, the boys looked at each other and they started laughing. The box said it again. They were still laughing and looking terrified the entire time. We were really convinced that this specific voice was saying Clayton’s name.
Then a couple of investigations went by and even when Clayton wasn’t with us, that same voice would come over the spirit box and mention him. At one point, we decided to ask who the voice belonged to and we heard the name Walter. Finally, at Culbertson, Clayton had enough. He put Walter in his place and we lectured him in the middle of the mansion. We asked him to back off and to go away.
Of course, he didn’t. We ended up going back to Jailhouse Pizza and it was funny, as we were leaving, we looked at all these clippings that were on the wall about when it used to be a jail. We found out that one of the sheriffs was named Walter and he had a son named Walter. I love when evidence is verified like that.
CP: Also, on that particular night, you did something that mediums rarely do. You took a spirit named Anna home with you. Was that a conscious decision?
KD: It was not meant to be. We kept on saying that entire night that no one was allowed to follow us home. When I went back and edited the episode, I realized that I did invite her. She was scared at one moment and I told her, “Don’t worry honey. Come hang out with me. I’ll protect you.” I guess in the spirit world, that means, you can hang out with me forever and ever.
I adore Anna. She’s a wonderful girl. We cohabitate well. The only rule I have for her is not to mess with my husband because he’s not into that stuff and you can hang out here with me. The connection was so real and so deep. I saw memories that night that weren’t mine flash through my head. She was literally in my mind. That’s so rare for me. The entire time we were there, she didn’t want to talk to anyone but me.
CP: Another interesting chapter in I’d Rather Talk to Dead People centered on the entertainment venue, Bobby Mackey’s in Wilder, Kentucky. This is a location that quite a few paranormal groups and television shows have visited in the past and supposedly demonic activity has been reported there. Although, you had a different experience.
KD: People are scared of it. They immediately think they are going to encounter something dark, nasty, malevolent and possibly demonic. You get out of your paranormal experience what you put into it. If you are frightened of it, it’s just going to be a scary experience. Where as if you are approaching the situation thinking, someone is trying to guide me or someone is trying to tell me their story, it’s an entirely different ball game when you deal with the paranormal.
I went into Bobby Mackey’s open minded, open to any spirit that wanted to communicate and I ended up hearing the most amazing story about this woman who is stuck on earth because she killed her rapist and she is afraid of what’s next. It’s like in life. We all just need to be a little more open minded and not look for the bad and evil in everything.
Not Every Ghost Hunt Summons Pazuzu
CP: Why do you think so many investigators automatically jump to the “evil entities” conclusion?
KD: You know, I have been thinking about this a lot lately. I feel it can be traced back to Ed and Lorraine Warren. I’m not blaming them at all. They were very religious people. I believe they thought if you were an earthbound spirit and you were not an angel in heaven, you were automatically a demon.
CP: You have been working in the paranormal field for years. Not every investigation is like The Exorcist or The Conjuring. Compare your experiences with the Hollywood perception of your avocation.
KD: I wish that I would walk into a bedroom and toys would be flying around with a clown that could wrap its arms around you…it would make investigations a lot more entertaining. Scary, sure, but a lot more entertaining than sitting in the basement of a honky-tonk expecting demons and absolutely nothing is happening.
It’s Hollywood. It’s entertainment. Some of the cable shows are entertainment value. I still enjoy them. I watch Zak Bagans (Ghost Adventures) every weekend, do I yell at my TV? Absolutely! That man is a genius. He is an entertainer, first and foremost.
His beliefs are his beliefs and I don’t judge him for that. I just wish he would be a little nicer to the ghosts, you know? I don’t think he is faking his reactions. What he is going through is happening to him. How he perceives it is how it is coming across to the audience.
A Window Into the Future
CP: Unfortunately, for fans of Oddity Files, you announced that it is the end of your series. Talk to us about that.
KD: It was a really good run. There was no drama to it, whatsoever. It was a 50-year-old woman goes ghost hunting with two twenty somethings who were about to embark on very exciting things in their lives. I didn’t want to be the one to hold either of them back. Just because I am completely obsessed with investigating the paranormal and this has enveloped my entire life doesn’t mean that it was the same for them.
So, it was time. Clayton moved on to bigger and better things on the west coast. Carter is starting a business with his Dad. I am so proud of them both. They are good guys. Wherever they end up, as long as they’re happy, I’m going to be cheering them on and if they’re not I’ll tell them, “Get your ass out of there and come home!”
CP: Your podcast will be continuing. Since you are taking the month of December off, do you want to tease anything about upcoming episodes for 2021?
KD: Honestly, I haven’t had the chance to think about restarting. Right now, I’m still decompressing. I have the feeling the live events won’t be a thing for 2021. It was Clayton and I at the cons for the day job and we would just hang out and do a podcast at night. So, I don’t know if that’s in the cards. Thank God, Nick (Oddity Files co-host) came along when he did when I was in my “I can’t think about COVID” phase and putting up 45 episodes a week.
I hadn’t seen him in years and he came on for an “Oddisode” and I thought this is fun. We used to work together at the day job and I missed him. It just felt right so I asked him if he had time once a week to do the podcast. He was down for it although he left me hanging for a while. He said that he would give it a little bit and if it wasn’t for him, he would let me know and I never heard anything. Finally, I asked him if we were still doing the podcast and he said that he couldn’t imagine his life without it now. He’s good people and he makes me laugh.
CP: You have quite a few projects on the horizon. In addition to your paranormal podcast, you also have Miss Murder, which is a true crime venture and Get Scared which showcases the work of indie horror authors. Tell us about these podcasts, where listeners can find them and how writers can submit their stories.
KD: Miss Murder was a brainchild of mine. Once DJ Jimmy taught me how to edit podcasts, I thought oh, I have time to do this. For Get Scared, I wanted to showcase some amazing authors out there who aren’t getting the exposure that they could. I felt if I could release this podcast in conjunction with Oddity Files, it might be fun for me as a hobby and really cool for these authors as well.
I’ve really enjoyed it. If anyone has any short horror stories or a chapter in an anthology book, reach out to Get Scared Pod. You can find Miss Murder on Apple podcasts and Stitcher. Get Scared Pod is available on Podbean.
CP: There is also an indie horror film in your future called Window with a View which is a twist on the haunted house tale. You will be playing the Medium. What can you tell us about this feature?
KD: It’s going to be a good time. One of my all-time favorite horror movies is Poltergeist. It’s a scary film with a paranormal backbone to it. I don’t want to give too much away. I get to play the medium. I’m a terrible actress so I’m glad it’s something I know.
CP: How is the Indiegogo campaign going? When do you expect to go into pre-production?
KD: The campaign just ended and they didn’t reach their goal. I don’t know if they will put another one up or if they will seek out sponsors or what’s happening to be perfectly honest. I would assume they’re going to go through with it. I haven’t heard anything otherwise.
Their plan is to start filming in early 2021 and it’s a grass roots production out of Lexington, Kentucky. They have a DP up here in Indiana so I may not have to travel and I’m kind of stoked.
CP: Where can our readers purchase, I’d Rather Talk to Dead People?
KD: It’s available on Amazon, Kindle for $4.99, Kindle Unlimited and Barnes & Noble’s website.
We thank Kitsie Duncan for spending time with us at Crash Palace.
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Crash Analysis Support Team
Susan Leighton
Susan Leighton has written for many entertainment sites in the past. Currently, her ramblings or rants (depending on the subject matter) can be found at Crash Palace, Diabolique and Grumpire. You can read her thoughts on I LOVE LUCY, DESIGNING WOMEN, MAMA’S FAMILY, GROWING PAINS and PUNKY BREWSTER in Lee Gambin’s compilation of classic sitcoms from the 1950’s through the 1980’s, TONIGHT, ON A VERY SPECIAL EPISODE which is available for pre-order through BearManor Media and Amazon NOW.
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