What started out as a woman thinking her house was haunted has now sparked a police investigation.
Katie Santry from Columbus, Ohio, took to TikTok earlier this week when she noticed her home office, including her laptop screen, was wrecked. Later, while attempting to put up a fence in her backyard, she and her boyfriend Brandon found a rolled-up carpet buried in the ground. Now, her videos have received millions of views on TikTok, as both Santry and the internet try to decipher her mysterious findings.
“Is there a dead body in that rug? Or is it the ghost of the rug’s past?” she questioned in one of her videos, adding: “My next-door neighbor also died in her house the day we bought this house last October.”
“That house started getting boarded up the same day this happened. So it was just a series of weird, coincidental events that, with a creative mind, could be construed as ghostly.”
Santry had enlisted help to dig up the rug in her backyard, but she later realized it was too long and received comments from TikTokers encouraging her to call law enforcement.
When the Columbus Police Department arrived at her home, they looked at the area and decided it was worth calling in an excavator to dig up the rug. However, after notifying the chief of police, it was decided that the officers could not deploy resources. It would be up to Santry to dig up the carpet herself and call them back if anything was found.
The TikToker explained that she was initially going to leave the rug in the ground, considering how close it was to her fire pit. But after more pressure from the comments section, she decided to keep digging and even went so far as to call the realtor who sold the house. Santry said that she hoped to get in contact with the old owners of the house, in the hopes that they knew where the carpet came from.
Before she was supposed to host a TikTok livestream of herself and her friends digging up the rug, however, she received a call from the homicide department. They informed her that they wanted to send detectives and cadaver dogs over to her house and inspect the area.
When the dogs began sniffing around her backyard, they immediately sat on the area with the rug, a sign of possible human remnants. Although, Santry noted in one of her TikTok videos that it could also mean something as little as blood from a bloody nose or a scraped knee.
On Thursday, October 3, Santry revealed that her house was taped off by law enforcement. She explained to her followers that she was waiting on a forensics team to show up at her house to see what was on the carpet. The police also informed her that it was not worth getting a lawyer because there are “no concerns” that she is involved.
However, commenters have been telling her that it might be worth enlisting a lawyer regardless.
“Word of advice: the cops are on your side until they’re not. Lawyer up ASAP. You think the blame for this can’t happen to you but they could build a case and it very well could. Be safe!” one commenter suggested.
Another user agreed, writing: “I don’t think it’s a bad idea to get a lawyer if only to look out for your rights as the homeowner and to make sure your property is taken care of during an investigation!”
In a statement to The Independent, Santry explained that looking back on the series of events, she never would’ve expected her videos to get this far. “I 1,000 percent did not expect any of this to happen when I posted a video about my house being haunted and a ‘ghost’ breaking my Macbook,” she said.
The Columbus Police Department also revealed in an emailed statement that although the investigation is still ongoing, there are no conclusive findings at this time. “CPD held the scene overnight and the officers resumed the investigation this morning. There are no conclusive findings at the time of this email,” they said.
On Friday, October 4, investigators began digging at Santry’s house and removed several small pieces of the rug, which also tested negative for human and animal remains. The Columbus Police Department said they have no plans for future tests.
Santry also kept her followers updated with TikTok videos throughout the process, as she cheered that there wasn’t a dead body in her backyard. “But I still want to know, WHO BROKE MY LAPTOP?!?” she jokingly captioned the clip.
