‘We’ll hear people talking. Things will move’: Tattoo shop in Franklin filled with dark history

FRANKLIN, Ind. — Haunted houses are usually filled with actors in costumes, flashing lights and artificial noises aiming for a good jump scare.

On Madison Street in Franklin, you’ll find a house with a haunted past of its own filled with pieces of dark history from around the world.

You may remember Adam Stoner from his giant black house that sat on a corner of a quiet street in Bargersville. That house sold but Stoner also owns The Salt House, his private tattoo studio that sits inside what was once his family home.

“So, I actually started experiencing things in this house when I was 16, personally. Being 38 now, that’s the biggest chunk of my life,” he said.

The Salt House, in addition to being a tattoo studio, is also a staging area for Stone’s vast collection of dark history.

Before our cameras came in, the only people who had seen the collection in person were customers who dared to sit for a tattoo.

When you come in The Salt House, you experience more discomfort than you signed up for.

“Actually, we had things yesterday. We heard footsteps last night running across the upstairs. Doors will slam. We’ll hear people talking. Things will move,” said Stoner. “Things will move on camera at nighttime. We come back and check. Batteries go out all the time. The TV gets messed with quite often.”

Stoner said some customers have even documented getting random scratches while sitting in the studio for tattoos.

There is so much haunted history being housed inside the walls and stories of paranormal experiences that Stoner released a documentary to chronicle it all.

“I don’t move this out of the exhibit often. In fact, I don’t even like to touch this thing at all,” he said.

One of the items he pulled out was an execution helmet from Auburn Prison in New York–America’s first prison with electric chair executions. The helmet was eventually used in Sing Sing prison.

Research suggests that, based on the screws used to update the helmet, it was used during the 1930s to carry out executions.

“If it was used in the ’30s in Sing Sing Prison. It was used to execute Albert Fish, the Brooklyn Vampire,” said Stoner.

Recognize the face the helmet is displayed on?

It’s the actual mold used for Hugh Jackman from the X-Men movies. The actor played Wolverine, his signature role.

If you don’t recognize the face, you’ll certainly recognize the infamous names in the next part of his collection.

A PDM Contractors Corp. business card is prominently displayed as one of the most recent additions to his collection. The name in the bottom left corner reads “John W. Gacy.”

“As you know, this card was handed out to get jobs but also how he recruited many of his victims,” said Stoner.

The day before Stoner came across the business card, he found an old, tattered clown costume that is displayed on a young boy almost calling for the final piece to complete the exhibit.

Next to that is a framed letter handwritten by the man known as the Milwaukee Cannibal, Jeffrey Dahmer.

“Once you start getting in this weird little group of collectors, It’s very small and everybody knows everybody. So you have to be a really honest person,” said Stoner.

Stoner works within a tight network of antique dealers who specialize in finding, vetting, and authenticating artifacts that fall into this unique category. His John Wayne Gacy business card came from a friend and seller, Father Wolf.

One piece in his collection is something that even the best seller wouldn’t know the value of, at least to Stoner. For years, he and his family have on occasion seen a figure “haunting” the stairwell of the house. They describe her as a beautiful, Black woman and always point out her prominent eyes. The experiences involve her silently, sternly staring at them.

One day, one of his sellers showed him a charcoal portrait that is believed to be from the 1800s that matched the looked of other pieces of his collection.

The woman in the photo looked exactly like the woman Stoner and his family had been haunted by for years.

Once you get past the serial killers and exorcism prayers lining the walls, there are pieces in his collection that are a little less dark, like an umbrella holder gifted to him from famous tattoo artist Kat Von D.

“The umbrella holder is not anything without the umbrella, so I give you Danny DeVito’s umbrella from ‘Batman Returns,’ the one that blows fire,” said Stoner as he mimicked the sound of the villain’s fire-blasting weather shield.

His collection even offers a little history in a Halloween classic–the jack-o’-lantern.

“In 1938, a farm decided to invent this where they put a pumpkin about yea size inside of this mold, it then traps the pumpkin and then the pumpkin takes shape of this face, then you take it off and the pumpkin is the actual head.”

This is a very small taste of what is inside The Salt House. Stoner says he has been cultivating his collection in the hopes of offering small tours starting in the spring. 

When it comes to deciding what to add to his collection, Stoner said there’s no “theme”–it’s all based on his gut and general interest. He said the pieces often find him.