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MERCER — Mercer is home to an historic courthouse, charming mom and pop shops and all the splendors of small town living. But most recently it’s home to something a little more grave: the Travel Channel’s Paranormal Challenge winners Resident Undead Paranormal investigation team. Resident Undead is made up of Mercer native and Slippery Rock University graduate Adam Kimmel, fellow SRU graduate Daniel Hooven and teammate Jim Leopardo. the three men were selected from 500,000 teams to participate in the Travel Channel’s latest series dealing with paranormal investigation. they traveled to the Rolling Hills Asylum in Bethany, N.Y., also known as the Genesee County Poor Farm, to take on Paranormal Xpeditions team of Boston. the episode debuted June 17 and can still be seen on YouTube. Rolling Hills Asylum, known in the paranormal community as a hot spot for activity, opened in 1920 as a poor house for the criminally insane and the property contains thousands of unmarked graves of patients. Zac Bagans, paranormal investigator from Ghost Adventures and host of the series, selected the teams and haunted locations for competition. the two teams separated and were given two hours per wing for investigation. Rolling Hills current owner Sharon Coyle and expert on the facility Stacy Jones gave the teams a tour. the women focused on a patient named Ray and an administration room belonging to Nurse Emma. a camera and audio crew followed the teams. Each team was given two camcorders and two digital voice recorders to even the playing field. One of the camcorders was a full spectrum, which captures infrared and ultraviolet spectrum beyond the normal visual field. That is where it is said you can see ghosts. they also had a digital voice recorder with a phonetic database that allowed words spoken by the spirits to be translated. the teams searched for visual evidence, such as orbs or shadows, plus audio evidence, presented as residual or intelligent EVP. Residual EVP, Kimmel explained, is like an echo caught in time, like broken recorder spinning in time, a very lucky catch. Intelligent EVP is real-time evidence or conversation with the dead, presented in classes ranked by quality and clarity of sound. “we knew where the dark spots were, we attacked and provoked. we knew the place was so haunted that we’d get results anywhere we walked, so we threw a little bit of entertainment into it was the strategy,” Kimmel said. At the end of the night each team presented its best two pieces of audio evidence and two of visual. not only were they judged on their evidence but also their teamwork, use of history of the location, and use and knowledge of the technological equipment. Dave Schrader, Gary Galka and Patrick Burns assisted Bagans with naming a winner. Schrader is a paranormal lecturer, author and paranormal talk show radio host. Galka is a paranormal investigator and inventor, having created the MEL meter, a low-frequency device that picks up artificial interruptions and an advanced EVP detector. Burns is the organizer of the Ghoststock event and a professional photographer. Resident Undead beat out Paranormal Xpeditions, winning only bragging rights of being a top contender in the paranormal community. Kimmel regularly investigates with Hooven and Leopardo. Kimmel said he went through different people before finding a serious team. Leopardo met Kimmel, when he was conducting research at Hillview Manor in New Castle. a few weeks later, the pair went to the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield for documentation and to practice with equipment. Kimmel became involved in 2006 after seeing the Ghost Adventures documentary at a gold mine in Nevada. One night on a dare, Kimmel ventured out into a cemetery to get validation. “I heard footsteps and I started talking and said ‘If you don’t talk to me, I assure you no one will ever come and visit you again,’ ” Kimmel said. he discovered a recorded EVP of a voice asking for help. his camcorder caught an apparition that appeared in the light of his camera before jumping away. It was then that Kimmel decided to turn down an internship in Harrisburg and pursue the paranormal. Kimmel has a son and taught tennis at Grove City College for eight years. he was a member of the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity at SRU. when not working, he edits the videos and the website for the group. Resident Undead produces YouTube videos. “what I try to do is to film the entire night and get electronic voice phenomenon, or ghost voices, where you are using a digital voice recorder where you may catch a voice that you can’t hear with your own ears but the recorder captured it under the white noise.” Kimmel refers to the Villisca, Iowa, axe murder house as one of the most evil places that he’s investigated. In about 1912 a local business owner hired an assassin to kill a family to eliminate the competition. Kimmel said the rumor is that while the family was at church, the assassin entered the home and hid there all day with an axe that belonged to the family. No one knows what time of night he attacked, but six members of the family and two guests were killed. “Do I believe the family is there haunting the place? Absolutely not. I think it’s something very evil that’s taken over the place that knows something tragic happened there and it knows that people go there every night to ask questions and it feeds off that and scares them,” he said. That was the team’s first out-of-state investigation. they went on to investigate the Madison (Ohio) Seminary and Prospect Place in Trenway, Ohio. In the plans is the Old Pittsburgh Hospital in Tennessee, a location strictly for paranormal research. they are also wrapping up season one of their online reality series, based on their research. As for Paranormal Challenge, Kimmel hopes to take on the girls from Boston another time. “I want a rematch; the girls were a very good team, excellent investigators. In the allotted time we had, it did no justice for them,” Kimmel said. the teams recorded four hours worth of evidence and had only four hours to review it.  “Any good paranormal researcher knows you need time to properly review everything in detail,” he said. Kimmel wanted to note that the television show was a challenge and not how they would normally conduct research. they are more professional, with no limit on time. he also mentioned that the producers of the show had the teams play up the dynamic of a battle of the sexes for the entertainment value. Limited time and having to learn foreign equipment were the challenges that the teams faced. Paranormal Xpeditions presented a male voice from the morgue and a struggle and scream residual EVP from Nurse Emma’s room. Their visual evidence was two instances of orbs surrounding the girls. Resident Undead presented audio recordings from the morgue and from a location known as the Christmas Room, where an active EVP said “kill him now or I’m gonna get him.” Their visual evidence was an orb surrounding Hooven after he was touched by the spirit of Roy and a shadow or a large man they believed to be Roy in a side room near the morgue. Kimmel said he wanted to clear up that there are no rules when it comes to paranormal investigation like what they were subjected to on the show. Resident Undead takes the stance that their goal is to get results. Kimmel says that people poke fun at the paranormal investigation community because unqualified people are doing it who should be removed. “the paranormal community is stale. we have the same people running around in the dark asking the same questions. we take a more aggressive approach. we go in to confront. If we know the location has a good history we don’t. you adapt to the situation,” he said. Kimmel said the experience has made him more religious. “I was raised Catholic and they’re against it, because while the Bible acknowledges the spirit world, it says you’re not supposed to interfere. the more I do this, I can’t not believe in something after. I believe in God 100 percent and my faith has grown stronger,” Kimmel said. his theory is that it is an equation. By capturing evidence of demons, he validates the existence of angels. “My research is to find the dark side, but by doing that I have validated the existence of God. It’s the forbidden fruit, but someone has to find it. I’m not trying to destroy religion by showing the spirit world, I’m legitimizing the Bible,” Kimmel said.

"the Paranormal Challenge" can be seen on YouTube. Resident Undead can be found online at ruparanormal.com.

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