The Widow and the Winchester | Criminal Podcast | Forensic Files

it's said that Sarah purposely designed this house with its stairs to the ceiling and doors to nowhere so as to
confuse the spirits that meant to do her harm for 38 years the sounds of hammering never stopped as Sarah and her
workers built room after room after room after room [Music] now it's your turn to experience the
unique features of this house on Winchester Boulevard in San Jose California there's a giant Victorian
Mansion the National Park Service describes it as a bizarre multi-gabled house it has 160 rooms quilted together over
time it's been called the most haunted house in the world and it's said to be the inspiration for the Haunted Mansion
at Disneyland it was built by a woman named Sarah Winchester in 1881 her husband William Winchester
died of tuberculosis leaving her reported 20 million dollar Fortune there will be nearly 500 million dollars today
and with the money she built a house some say it was designed to be haunted the story of the Winchester House is a
story about gossip grief and a very famous gun I'm Phoebe judge this is criminal
in 1862 Sarah Pardee married William Winchester in New Haven Connecticut she had repeated miscarriages for years and
finally gave birth to a baby daughter Annie something was wrong with the baby she couldn't digest food and starve to
death then Sarah's mother died then William died and Sarah Winchester reportedly went to
a medium to try to communicate with them millions of Americans believed in spiritualism which is basically a
conviction that the living can communicate with the dad and that the world's the living and the dead are
overlaid so it wasn't at all unusual that Sarah might have been interested in that idea and it might have run its
course as an idea except for the Civil War this is Pamela Hague she's the author of the Gunning of America
business and the making of American Gun culture after the Civil War it gained momentum again because of the the
heartache and tragedy in American families caused by the war and that's desire to be able to communicate with
with the dead was was even more keen even the Lincolns tried to summon the spirit of their dead son in the White
House when Sarah visited the medium she was told that people around her were dying
as retribution for all the deaths caused by her family's gun business the Winchester repeating Arms Company
now the biggest part of the legend holds she became increasingly convinced that she was being haunted by the spirits of
everyone killed by Winchester rifles and that in order to make amends after her husband's death
she was to move out to California and start building a house and keep building and never stop and this house was either
to accommodate all of the ghosts killed by Winchester rifles or perhaps to appease them
the Winchester rifle was Innovative for its time since it could consecutively shoot 15 bullets before reloading
it was so popular that it was nicknamed the gun that won the West making the blue Chester family
Sarah and her husband very rich indeed [Music] the Winchester repeating Arms Company
was started by William Winchester's father Oliver Winchester Oliver Winchester owned a shirt factory
before he switched to making and selling guns in 1857. it's said that Oliver Winchester had
never even fired a gun until he started selling them and in 1860 the Winchester repeating
Arms Company patented a rifle that changed the world not only because of what it could do but
because of how people felt about it okay so the repeater rifle was a revolutionary new kind of gun design
before the repeater rifle guns were laborious to load it's really difficult to load them it was hard to get off more
than maybe one or two shots a minute the repeater rifle in a lot of ways was kind of the first semi-automatic rifle
kind of began the whole era of the modern gun the repeater rifle was a huge Advance
toward semi-automatic guns they were much more lethal and quite shocking to people who had
never seen this sort of gun technology before it really changed Warfare it changed how Shooters thought about
themselves and what they could they could do with their guns before this repeater rifle even a very skilled
shooter could only fire two shots in a minute then they'd have to stop stand up and
reload making themselves a target for example the blackfeet Indian had learned the Indians had learned that
um a white man might come into their territory get off a shot but then he'd have to stand up to reload his rifle and
when he did that they could Ambush him the repeater rifle completely changed that kind of conflict and was quite
stunning when when the Model 66 the Winchester Model 66 was first used in a skirmish and the blackfeet Indian came
to call the gun the spirit guns because they couldn't imagine how quickly the gun was firing they couldn't understand
or account for how it was shooting so quickly American Indians would soon adopt the Winchester repeater rifle
including using it to defeat General Custer in the Battle of Little Bighorn gun manufacturers made most of their
money selling to the government Oliver Winchester had hoped that his revolutionary new gun would be a major
seller during the Civil War that didn't happen he was unable to secure big army contracts
phew Civil War soldiers were issued the Winchester repeater rifle but it was so good that many soldiers
went out and bought it with their own money it made it possible for one man to be
almost like the equivalent of 16 soldiers so it was magnifying The Killing power of each individual Soldier
or each individual they could now get off more shots more quickly as if there were 16 or 20 soldiers
um there were reports in the Civil War of um Shooters who would spit on their rifles and they would Sizzle because
there were so many shots gotten off so quickly so you weren't part of a troop anymore regiment you were your own Army
you were a host unto yourself in the in the language of the day Oliver Winchester leaned into this he
rebranded to market the rifle as a symbol of individualism something every American needed
Pamela Hague writes one answer to the question of why Americans love guns is simply that the gun industry invited us
to there was much more of a sense of the gun as something that every real boy would want to have that was a phrase
from a Winchester advertisement in the 1920s and they were associated much more with masculinity with the idea of a
viral outdoor culture or sporting culture so emotions around guns grew increasingly strong from the 1800s
into the 1900s in 1885 alone the Winchester repeating Arms company made 1.8 million dollars
the more successful the Winchester company became the more money Sarah Winchester inherited so a lot of the
shares kind of trickled down to her over the decades I'm not sure how much precisely she
inherited but her shares toward the end of her life her shares on the company alone in modern terms and modern value
would have been close to half a billion and she spent an estimated 5 million building her house
Sarah Winchester hired dozens of construction workers to work in shifts nearly 24 hours a day seven days a week
to keep working on her house making it bigger and more confusing until it was bigger than any house in the world
neighbors and newspapers speculated about why happy to repeat the rumor that she was
in there alone tormented by the ghosts of those who had been killed by the guns that made her
Fortune [Music] it it doesn't really make sense if you're if you're an onlooker right Jan
and bomi Winchester House historian feel she she moves out here she's wealthy she
starts building this house that's all fine and good and then she never stops and pretty soon people like man is she
ever gonna stop and then you know somebody new comes to the valley and they go look at that house she never
stops building she just keeps building and building pretty soon you know it turns into this 24 hours a day seven
days a week she never stops building what's going on um yeah that's how the stories grew
because it didn't really make sense to people welcome to the Winchester Mystery House
my friends um it should be a very fun time I'm about to can't have you right now so what are
you guys names my name is Phoebe Phoebe all right Lauren Zach oh nice to meet you ladies nice to meet you all right so
there are a couple of different types of tours at what is now called the Winchester Mystery House
we did not go on the ghost tour which requires a hard hat Lauren Spore and I opted for the private
tour was that guller an actor who's been working as a tour guide here for a few months
we started the tour with one of The house's stranger features so right here we actually have a staircase that goes
up to the ceiling oh look at that it doesn't go anywhere yeah yeah absolutely nowhere but the ceiling
um I always like to tell people on my tours that I would not recommend going up the stairs in a hurry simply because
you probably would not remember much after that but again I don't know exactly why Sarah would put this here
maybe to confuse the alleged spirits that inhabited the inside which I can get into a little bit more as we go
the whole place is confusing a Staircase to Nowhere always leading to more hallways doors opening to walls
in 1895 an article in the San Jose Daily News read it is said that the owner of the house believes that when it's
entirely completed she will die this Superstition has resulted in the construction of a maze of Domes turrets
and Towers covering territory enough for a castle Mrs Winchester was a very short woman
four feet ten inches tall she went up to about below my shoulder on myself I'm six feet tall now most of my chagrant of
the house is custom built for a person that is of Sarah's size and we're actually going to walk up these stairs
right here it's a perfect example of that it's 44 steps in length and it makes seven complete twists and turns
but it only takes you nine feet above to your next stop so and you'll see with the way these stairs are oriented
they're very very shallow so uh wow here we go oh look at this is the point of the tour where my guests typically start
losing their minds so oh basically yeah they just they're just astounded a few stairs and then I remind
them we're just getting started so so there are 40 bedrooms in the house one of the uh one of the main theories
why there are still many scattered throughout the house is according to Legend Mrs Winchester would sleep in a
different bedroom every night as a way to confuse the spirits that it habited the inside so yeah and there's 40
bedrooms total throughout the Mansion so 40 bedrooms 13 bathrooms there are more
than ten thousand Windows that's more than the Empire State Building in 1895 San Francisco Examiner piece
described it as dreamlike and a bewildering spectacle this is Sarah's Seance room and standing inside of it is
typically a very special privilege simply because this room is said to be strictly off limits to everyone except
for Sarah herself now according to Legend Sarah would come inside this room every single night she would communicate
with the spirits of those who were killed by the Winchester rifles and they would then give her instructions on how
to build the house the gun was becoming more and more popular when someone was murdered with a
Winchester rifle newspapers would often say so sometimes speculating on whether it was
the power of the Winchester that made a shot deadly some people wanted the Winchester taxed
it was too easy to use and people were getting killed here's Pamela Hague it it definitely made killing faster to some
extent easier some of the advertisement said that you can get all several shots without even really really having to aim
so there was a sense that these encounters are more destructive haphazard faster more lethal we don't
know if Sarah Winchester followed these stories but it was said that her Seance room was
full of outfits that she would put on to try to communicate with the victims so we can never know what Sarah was seeing
or feeling in her own head and we can never know for certain what she actually believed to be true but it does seem
that there are some tantalizing clues that she might have continually been revisiting this Legacy this Blood
fortune and that she was haunted by it and that she built constantly in an effort to paste over repress cover up
redo the house certainly looks like the the product of a very restless conscience to me
[Music] honestly I can't help thinking that she had a sense of humor because sometimes
I'll look at things in this house and they just make me laugh um I think she was having a good time I
really do Jan and bowmy Winchester House historian I think she was having fun and
I think that she and her workers probably um kind of brainstormed and bounced ideas off of each other so some of the
ideas were probably hers some might have been her Architects or her Carpenters um I think there were some things that I
look at and I just think okay this makes no sense at all this looks like busy work so maybe on rainy days or during
the bad weather she wanted to keep them working and she'd say I wanted to go over here and build a few rooms you know
and and do whatever you want yeah I'm not really sure but I think that she enjoyed the process she did say once
that it was her Hobby House she was different I mean I think about it a woman in her time who controlled
her own fortune controlled her own life she was suspect automatically because women didn't do that back then
Sarah Winchester reported on and sometimes ridiculed in the papers she was described as obsessive reclusive
guilt-stricken childless always wearing a black veil and gloves one article from 1911 called her home
The Spook Palace The Spook Palace you know would soon be you know something about how death would soon visit the The
Spook Palace or something like that the the article was full of nonsense I mean it just it hardly got anything right
except her name in the name of her estate but people just you know they would make stuff up
um they would talk about things that they had heard elsewhere they would exaggerate it a little bit to make it
sound more interesting and basically some articles called her hysterical they called her crazy they called her
um you know many different things but they all made her sound as if she were mentally Disturbed
either because she was haunted by the ghosts of the victims of Winchester guns or her husband and daughter
right yeah yeah and so they they couldn't understand her and they just made of her what they wanted and she
would not engage with the media her some of her people have read letters that some of the people close to her had
written saying I I'm not going to talk to these people they won't listen to me anyway you know I know people have tried
to clear the record and they don't listen they don't want to hear the truth so I'm not going to talk to them
as for the theory that Sarah was haunted by Winchester victims it may have been started by jealous
neighbors angry about Sarah's money angry about her never-ending construction or her refusal to socialize
it could have come from anti-gun activists or reporters looking for a story we sat down with Jan and bomi in Sarah
Winchester's dining room she's been in love with the house since she was a little girl her great uncle
used to work on the grounds and for her the house has a warm feeling she wonders if Sarah's continuous
construction was actually a form of therapy perhaps a way to feel connected to her late husband
they'd spent years building and designing a home in New Haven together she enjoyed architecture she did her own
drafting she collected architecture journals and studied manuals in the Grand Ballroom downstairs Sarah
had two custom stained glass windows made they're on either side of the fireplace
both are inscribed with obscure Shakespeare quotes cryptic ones one is from troilus and Cressida it
reads wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts the other comes from Richard II it reads
these same thoughts people this little world Sarah Winchester continued working on
her house for 38 years construction finally stopped on September 5th 1922 when she died of
heart failure in her sleep she was 82 years old one of the last things that Zach showed
us on the tour was a giant door right next to those stained glass windows when Mrs Winchester passed away this
door was opened and behind it was revealed a giant safe almost the size of this door now upon that first layer you
guys might be thinking that's where Mrs Winchester just kept all of her leftover
money gold jewelries those types of valuables but actually that giant first safe was opened inside of it was
actually revealed a very valuable smaller second safe and inside that second safe was an even more valuable
smaller third safe now at this point it's got to be something that is more valuable to Mrs Winchester than anything
else in this world and that's indeed what it was there were only four items inside that third and final safe it was
a lock of her daughter's hair a lock of her husband's hair and both of their obituary notices so yeah it's honestly
it's a really tragic story honestly when I tell it 22 profile in the Oakland Tribune reads
the rasping of the saw has been replaced by the song of the hummingbird and the methodical tap tap of hammers has given
way to quiet five months after Sarah Winchester died the house was open to the public more
than 12 million people have visited to hear the story of this Widow haunted by guns to walk through the rooms she
built hoping to see a ghost before they leave they have a chance to visit the gift shop
where you can buy a shot glass shape like a shotgun shell [Music] criminal is created by Lauren Spore and
me Nadia Wilson is our senior producer audiomix by Rob Byers special thanks to Susanna Roberson
Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal you can see them at this
criminal.com where we've also got pictures of Sarah Winchester and the Winchester House
follow us on Twitter and Facebook at criminal show criminal is recorded in the studios of
North Carolina public radio wunc we're a proud member of radiotopia from PRX a collection of the best
podcasts around I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal foreign [Music]

When Sarah Winchester’s husband died, she inherited millions from the family business: the manufacture of the famous Winchester Rifle. A medium reportedly told Sarah that she would be haunted by the victims of that rifle unless she used her fortune to build a house, and never stop building. That’s exactly what she did.

Pamela Haag’s book is The Gunning of America: Business and the Making of American Gun Culture (https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/pamela-haag/the-gunning-of-america/9780465048953/).

Criminal is a show about people who’ve done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle. Hosted by Phoebe Judge. Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Join Criminal Plus on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Criminal) for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, listener chat rooms, behind-the-scenes content, and more membership perks.

Follow Criminal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. https://pod.link/809264944

Say hello on social: https://twitter.com/criminalshow / https://www.instagram.com/criminal_podcast / https://www.facebook.com/thisiscriminal / https://www.tiktok.com/@criminal_podcast

Sign up for our occasional newsletter, which includes a note from Phoebe, behind-the-scenes photos, and things our team has been enjoying lately: https://thisiscriminal.com/newsletter

We also make the podcasts This is Love (https://pod.link/1337100398) and Phoebe Reads a Mystery (https://pod.link/1503921457).

Artwork by Julienne Alexander: http://www.yssrs.com/. Check out our online shop: https://shop.thisiscriminal.com/

Episode 107 originally published Feb. 1, 2019. https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-107-the-widow-and-the-winchester-2-1-2019

Music in this episode: “Villano” by Blue Dot Sessions “Tuck and Point” by Blue Dot Sessions “Calisson” by Blue Dot Sessions “Cicle Ariel” by Blue Dot Sessions “Luper” by Blue Dot Sessions “Min” by Blue Dot Sessions

Brief Summary

The episode covers Sarah Winchester's haunted house, her grief, and the legacy of the Winchester rifle.

Key points

The Haunted Legacy of Sarah Winchester. Sarah Winchester built a house to appease the spirits of those killed by her family's guns.
The Winchester Repeating Arms Company. The rifle that changed warfare and made Sarah Winchester wealthy.
A House of Confusion. The Winchester Mystery House features staircases and doors that lead nowhere.
The Final Safe. Inside Sarah's final safe were locks of hair and obituary notices of her family.
Public Fascination. After Sarah's death, the house opened to the public and became a tourist attraction.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

She was to move out to California and start building a house and keep building.

Sarah Winchester's directive after her husband's death.

3:20WatchMar 27, 2026

Tension

45/ 100Some tension

More from Criminal | A Podcast About Crime

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.