For Sabrina Deana-Roga, co-host of the podcast “Two Girls One Ghost,” her 1767 house on Front Street came with an unusual selling point.
“The day we bought the house,” she recalled, “the previous owner was like, ‘I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I can’t wait for you to meet the ghosts.'”
Having recently relocated from the West Coast with her partner, Payne Lindsey, Deana-Roga found it to be the perfect welcome. She had fallen in love with Marblehead during a writer’s retreat two years ago, a trip her podcast co-host, Corinne Vien, had suggested. “It’s been the background on my phone since that trip,” she said.
‘Maybe don’t listen while driving’
The podcasters’ show explores eerie tales and supernatural encounters, delving into heavily researched and listener-submitted stories of the strange and spooky. They have thousands of subscribers and have posted nearly 700 episodes.
Deana-Roga and Vien met during their first week as theater majors at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Vien’s introduction during an acting class — her fun fact was that she grew up in a haunted house — caught Deana-Roga’s attention immediately.
“I was like, ‘I wanna be her friend,'” said Deana-Roga.
Both women experienced paranormal encounters in their youth. While Vien grew up in a haunted home in Vermont, Deana-Roga had recurring supernatural experiences that shaped her fascination with the unexplained. When Vien attended graduate school in Salem in 2016, Deana-Roga, then working as a television writer on shows like Fox’s “Prodigal Son,” proposed starting a podcast to stay connected — which the pair did in 2017.
One episode stands out as particularly notorious. Episode 12, titled “Dominus,” features a listener story about a boyfriend’s possession, in which a demon revealed itself to both him and his girlfriend. The episode has gained such a reputation that listeners report strange occurrences after tuning in.
“We had a listener who was listening to that episode while driving, and a bird flew into her windshield, shattering it,” Deana-Roga says. “Now we don’t joke about being the most haunted podcast in America. We tell people, ‘Hey, really scary, demonic episode, maybe don’t listen while driving.'”
During the pandemic, when “Prodigal Son” was canceled after its second season due to COVID-19, both women decided to pursue the podcast full time. The gamble paid off, with their inbox now overflowing with listener submissions.
“There are so many haunted places and people, and we get emails from listeners all the time,” Deana-Roga explains. “If I look at my inbox, we probably have like 8,000 unread listener-submitted stories. We could presumably do this for an eternity.”
‘Polly, is that you?’
For those interested in listening to their podcast, their episode titled “Haunted Town of Marblehead” delves into several supernatural oddities and stories locally. Deana-Roga and Vien explore how the town’s atmosphere even captivated horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, who used Marblehead as inspiration for his fictional town of Kingsport. Lovecraft described the seaside settlement as having “ancient veins and steeples, ridge poles and chimney pots, wharves and small bridges, willow trees and graveyards, endless labyrinths of steep, narrow, crooked streets.”
The episode pays attention to Wilmot Redd, the sole Marblehead resident executed during the Salem witch trials.
“She was convicted of bewitching Mary Walcott and Mercy Lewis, even though she had never met these girls before being accused,” Deana-Roga said. Today, an Old Burial Hill marker, purchased by late town historian, Ginny Gamage, to honor Redd’s memory, stands near the pond, which bears her name.
The hosts also investigate the tale of the “Screeching Lady” who haunts Lovis Cove (near the Barnacle) – a tragic figure from the 17th century whose piercing cries locals say echo across stormy nights. According to town lore, she was a woman who attempted to escape from pirates, only to be caught and murdered at the cove. Her screams are said to still echo near the present-day Barnacle Restaurant.
As for her own haunted home, Deana-Roga embraces its quirks. A recent visit from a Salem psychic identified “weird energy” in one corner of the basement. When Deana-Roga later attempted a livestream ghost hunt in that area, an electronic voice phenomenon (EVP) reader’s first words were “behind you.”
The house’s original owner’s aunt, known as Aunt Polly, once raised and sold hundreds of pigeons from the second floor. Today, pigeons still regularly perch by the windows, peering inside.
“When they show up,” Deana-Roga said, “I’m like, ‘Polly, is that you?'”
