Brandon, Miss. —

A family in Brandon, Mississippi has been experiencing paranormal activity since receiving a unique gift for Christmas from an acquaintance.

The gift, a vintage doll carriage, was given to the family of Whitney Merritt by Merritt’s mother; who received it from a friend of a friend.

For the rest of 2020, it was calm; then in the first days of 2021, paranormal activity started.

Knocking on walls and ceilings began at the start of the new year, Merritt told reporters of WLBT. Happening around midnight, the knocking became so loud that Merritt twice went to the front door thinking someone was outside. She called her husband out of fear.

“I think someone’s at the front door,” Merritt told her husband, Michael.

Every time she checked the knocking stopped and no one could be seen.

“And then about the third or fourth night was when we started hearing, like, boom, boom, boom, in the attic,” Merritt continued.

The sounds in the attic became so frequent Michael went into the attic carrying a shotgun and a flashlight.

“We were out there making so much noise. People probably thought we were crazy. We thought there was somebody in the attic!”

In the second week of 2021, Merritt was constantly woken from sleep by loud noises coming from the kitchen.

One night, Merritt was woken from her sleep by a loud noise which she promptly investigated with a handgun. She found nothing. In the morning she discovered a bag with smashed coffee mugs recently purchased from TJMaxx; far from the table she placed them the day before.

The very next night there was a loud bang at 3:30 am. Merritt went to the kitchen and found another bag with another mug. She cleaned up the broken mug that spilled on the floor. As she started walking back to her bedroom she heard a large number of silverware being dropped into the kitchen sink.

“I mean, I wasn’t even back to the bedroom yet and that’s when I turned around. I about broke my neck,” she says. “And I went back to the sink to look and was like, ‘Maybe something slipped and fell,’ but I had just done the dishes. There was nothing in the sink. So I was freaked out… I stayed up for a while.”

About a week later, Merritt went to wake up Michael from work. As he got ready, Merritt began cleaning the living room. As she swept, she saw her husband walk into the kitchen. Merritt says she asked him a question he kept refusing to answer. Frustrated, she walked into the kitchen to find no one. She went back to the bedroom to find Michael asleep.

“I saw him, I swear on my kids and I’m not crazy. Please don’t think I’m crazy. Cause repeating this to somebody, I know it sounds weird. Because I’ve never believed in any of that ever in my life. I’m not— But I saw a person walk past the door into the kitchen.”

One more event happened that shook. Michael was home and everyone else away. Suddenly he heard the front door open and close, then their son’s door. He walked to the room and saw that his son’s light and box were on, and a bottle of water was dripping on the floor.

After this Merritt and her husband discussed the events they have been witnessing. Together they decided the new doll carriage might have been the cause of the disturbances. They have since put the carriage outside and everything has returned to normal.

The carriage is now in the garage. and is being sold on Facebook Marketplace for $65. “Full disclosure,” the caption reads. “It’s definitely haunted. Sooo. Yeah.”

Merritt said that she received information on the carriage from her mother, who told her that the owner’s husband was killed in a motorcycle accident on the Natchez Trace a year ago. She believes that it is possible that is who Merritt saw walk past her in the kitchen.

This story was first reported on by WLBT