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family knew this was
    out of character for Bell and that he was very
    troubled about something.
    Bedcovers Pulled from Children
    As the nights grew colder, the noises that once
    occurred outside the Bell home moved inside. The
    Bell children began waking in the middle of the
    night, extremely frightened and complaining of
    noises that sounded like rats gnawing relentlessly at
    their bedposts.
    The noises would temporarily stop when a candle
    was lit, but quickly started up again as soon as the
    candle was blown out. After these noises had been
    heard inside the Bell home each night for about a
    week, the children began to feel light jerking at their
    pillows and sheets as they were about to doze off.
    When they tried to hold on to their sheets or hide
    underneath them, the jerking became considerably
    stronger — often pulling the sheets off the beds and
    leaving the children freezing and trembling with
    bone-chilling fear.
    Sometimes when trying to resist this unknown
    force pulling at their sheets, the Bell children were

    40 P A T
    F I T Z H U G H
    slapped in their faces by a seemingly invisible hand.
    John and Lucy Bell always rushed to the children’s
    bedsides to comfort them when such disturbances
    occurred, but even this level of comfort and consoling
    was not enough. The harder the Bells tried to resist
    the mysterious force, the more restless and vicious it
    became.
    The disturbances occurred very late at night,
    sometimes not ending until after 3 o’clock in the
    morning. When awakened, the Bells searched every
    room of the house in hopes of finding a reasonable
    explanation for the humiliation and torment that was
    being inflicted upon them by this mysterious entity,
    seemingly at its own will. When they searched one
    room, the noises began in another room. When they
    ran to the other room hoping to find the culprit, the
    noises ceased and soon started up in yet another
    room.
    Over time, the once light gnawing at the bedposts
    became louder and sounded like a dog grinding its
    paws into the floor beneath the bed. The Bells also
    began hearing the sounds of stones falling and
    chains being dragged across the floor late at night.
    These disturbances took not only an emotional toll
    on the Bells, but a physical one as well. Work on the
    farm still had to be done, which meant rising before
    daybreak each day. Since the Bells often did not get
    to sleep until after 3 o’clock in the morning, they
    grew tired quickly each morning and the days soon
    became longer.
    The Bells seldom spoke of the disturbances while
    working during the day or having dinner in the
    evening because their exhaustion and level of
    emotional stress were beyond anything they had ever
    experienced. By this time, it was clear in the minds
    of John and Lucy Bell that the disturbances were the
    work of an entity that possessed much greater power

    THE BELL WITCH: THE FULL ACCOUNT
    41
    than their own, and which seemingly had a mind of
    its own.
    When the Bells occasionally spoke of the
    disturbances among themselves, the only possible
    explanations that came to mind were acts of the
    Almighty or fallout from the New Madrid earthquakes
    that occurred in west Tennessee several years earlier.
    Elizabeth is Tortured
    Shortly after retiring one evening, the entire family
    was awakened by ear-piercing screams coming from
    Elizabeth’s room. When John and Lucy Bell arrived
    at their daughter’s bedside, they found her crying,
    her hair in knots, and her face covered with welts.
    “Oh God, my dear child, what has happened to
    you? I’ve never seen a human being in as much fear
    as you appear to be in now. Please, tell your father
    and I what happened to you.” Elizabeth’s words were
    not understandable, as she was still crying and
    gasping for breath. Her body cold and trembling
    from head to toe, she tried very hard to speak, but
    the chattering of her teeth muffled her words.
    Lucy Bell lay beside her while John Bell rubbed
    her head and