Niles grad on ‘Haunted Collector’

Daily Star columnist Joanie Gentry and her Sawyer home are featured on “Haunted Collector” at 9 and 11 p.m. Wednesday on the Syfy Channel.

The premise of the show is that ghosts and spirits inhabit more than homes and buildings. They can live in objects, too.

“We did find an item causing paranormal activity,” host John Zaffis said suspensefully.

His team tries to help a woman, 50, who graduated from Niles High School in 1980 and who sees shadows and hears whispers.

“I’ve always had experiences throughout my life,” said Gentry, a former Whirlpool manager who works for the state Department of Natural Resources at Warren Dunes State Park on Lake Michigan.

“I get to be surprised,” said Gentry, who has not seen the episode filmed in February.

Gentry, whose family members have also experienced the increasingly frequent paranormal activity, responded to a Facebook posting last fall.

“I never thought anything would come of it,” she said. “I was pleasantly surprised at how kind and down-to-earth John was. The whole team was great people to work with. And activity has greatly decreased since their visit.”

Zaffis has been active in the paranormal community for 40 years and involved with hundreds of cases as a researcher.

Spirits become attached to objects through rituals associated with witchcraft or to a familiar object important to them while in human form.

Zaffis’ paranormal museum contains hundreds of items removed from homes following unexplained, often negative, phenomenon.

The Zaffis family tracks items such as paintings, guns, jewelry and dolls.

Once identified, these items are stored in the museum, helping clients return normalcy to their lives.

Most items are not destroyed because the spirit attached to that object may gravitate to the individual who destroys it.

Museum items had cleansing rituals performed on them. If the spirit is too strong, the “haunted” item is disposed of by burying it in the ground or throwing it into a body of water.

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