Investigation of Tasma Terrace – The site of the Parliament Place tragedy

Located on the immediate edge of Melbourne CBD is Tasma Terrace. A collection of terraces built in the 19th century, which have now been restored and form the headquarters of the National Trust of Victoria. First of all, I’m so jealous that this is an office. Who wouldn’t want to come to this beautiful building every day to work. Oh yeah and it’s haunted = dream job! I had the special opportunity to conduct a paranormal investigation of Tasma Terrace. There have been reports from staff of uneasy feelings in certain rooms and some have even seen the ghost of a woman standing by the photocopier. Why would they see the ghost of a woman? It just so happens that Tasma Terrace has a darker history involving a woman being murdered.

Edith Jane Forrester Jubb lived and ran what was called the Tasma Terrace lodging house (Tasma Terrace was a series of terraces next to each other). Controversially, she lived with her ‘lover’, Mr Alfred Turner. She had a 15-year-old daughter named Fanny, who was not Alfred’s. As you can imagine, this was a very scandalous thing in the 19th century. It was rumored that she was an adulteress. It is unknown if she was, or if this is just an assumption based on the fact that she lived with her ‘lover’. He was rumored to be an aggressive and violent man according to his stepdaughter Fanny, who had apparently witnessed his cruelty towards her mother firsthand. She said he even threatened to shoot her mother numerous times. It seems that one day he carried out his threat. On August 14, 1890, a lawyer living on Parliament Place, now known as Tasma Terrace, heard the gunshots and went to investigate the scene. He then went to get Doctor Charles Ryan and on the way back he found Officer William Harley nearby. Constable Harley was the first officer on scene. He found Alfred standing in the hallway with a cut on his forehead. As he walked past the dining room to the bedroom at the back of the building, he found Edith lying lifeless. She had a gun in her left hand and the left side of her body was soaked in her own blood. (This is important and I’ll tell you why soon). The left side of her face was swollen and she had a bullet hole under her left eye and a second gunshot wound near the left ear. Apparently the first bullet only broke her upper jaw, but the second bullet was fatal.

The hallway where Alfred Turner was found shortly after the murder took place

The coroner opened an inquest on August 16, which was held in the dining room of the lodging house. The immediate assumption was that she committed suicide, but there are a few problems with this. First, she was shot twice with a revolver that had to be recocked after each shot. It would be quite difficult to shoot yourself in the head, recock the revolver and then try it again to get the job done. However, the doctor who performed the autopsy, Doctor GA Syme, ruled that this was possible. The biggest problem with the story was that Edith was found with the gun in her left hand and with wounds on the left side of her body. This would only be possible if you were left-handed. The problem is that Edith’s daughter Fanny swears that his mother was right-handed and hated guns. She even went to the extreme of hiding Alfred’s gun. It is unknown if it was because she was afraid of what he would do or if it was due to her hatred of guns. During the whole commotion it happened that a bullet had strayed and hit the wall. This caused the bandage to come loose and injure Alfred, which explained the cut on his forehead. Murder-suicide was the story. According to records, the all-male jury proceeded to character assassinate Edith as an immoral, alcoholic, jealous woman, and Alfred was just a man suffering from financial stress and experiencing frustration due to their social status based on their current living situation. After 45 minutes, although the defense presented testimony from daughter Fanny about aggression and abuse and the fact that her mother was right-handed and could not have committed suicide, the all-male jury deemed it a suicide and Alfred was allowed to go. His and Edith’s children seemed to disappear off the face of the earth and no records of them can be found after the trial. It is not known whether he fled or simply kept a low profile.

A photo of the dining room where the inquest was held

The part of the terrace where the murder took place has since been demolished, but her body was held in the dining room of Tasma Terrace, where the inquest also took place. Her body was kept in this room for days. The dining room is still there, as is the hall where Alfred was also found and we had the opportunity to investigate these areas and I can tell you we were surprised to find them.

We examined three key areas. The first was the dining room where the inquest was held. At the time, we did not yet know the extensive history behind Tasma Terrace. We knew a woman had been murdered and that was it, because we wanted our evidence to show us the way. In the dining room we mapped out a figure manifesto using a wearable kinect. The irony is that we weren’t filming, so of course we can’t show it to you. I know well, I want to face the palm. We have received different names via the SB7 spirit box and the GD box (custom portal). The name Harley came up. At the time we were unaware that a Constable Harley was involved. The name Emily also came up and research showed that it was the name of Alfred’s 6-year-old daughter. The most impressive part of the night was standing with the wearable Kinect in my hands and mapping Glenn on one side and another person on the other. I asked a spirit to try to manifest between them in front of the fireplace. Although they didn’t map the kinect, the REM pod located where I asked the ghost to stand went off. I find this impressive for several reasons. I know how to activate a REM Pod. We didn’t have cell phones on, they were in another building, we didn’t have walkie talkies, and we had done baselines of the entire building and we knew where every wire was. The REM Pod rarely goes off on its own. I’ve seen it happen three times in my life and I couldn’t explain it. This is number 4.

The stairs where the shadow detector was activated.

We cut short our investigation in the dining room because we had placed a shadow detector on the stairs. It went off. We immediately investigated and held an EVP session on the stairs. I was listening live and couldn’t hear any EVPS, but the audio still needs to be reviewed. We also did an SB7 session and received several males trying to communicate. The overall theme received here was the name Adam and the word Kill. I’m still researching this and not sure if it makes any sense.

We also investigated various other spaces on the adjacent terraces. What was interesting were the reactions we received in the front room of the terrace next door. Using the K2 devices, we solicited responses based on yes/no responses. We had already done a full check and we knew that there was no interference of any kind where the K2 was placed. What was also interesting was that we placed 4 K’2 in the room. If it was a phone or some sort of radio interference, they would all be affected. Only 1 K2 responded. It was the K2 that the National Trust employee had in her hands and that only responded when she asked a question. It’s also worth noting that she is quite a skeptical, scientifically minded person who studied science, so she was an excellent resource to have with us. She couldn’t explain it. It looked like she was communicating with the ghost we thought was Alfred. He doesn’t feel like he did anything wrong and that he didn’t kill her. He apparently also found it quite funny that our host had already fallen down the stairs. We think he was communicating with her as she is a familiar familiar face and his reactions seem to indicate that as well. Of course, I don’t know for sure and I’m not saying that everything we experienced was paranormal, but there were quite a few moments where we had to say, okay, that’s quite interesting.

Antechamber where we may have been in contact with Alfred’s spirit

Overall, we were surprised by some of the information we received and even more surprised when we then went through the books to discover which players were involved and what allegedly happened. We were asked by the National Trust to organize a paranormal investigation for their members and a few members of the general public to take them through Tasma Terrace for the first ever public paranormal investigation into this location. In fact, as of the night above, we were the first people to do an actual paranormal investigation. A few years ago they had some psychics read the house, but they had no equipment and didn’t do any research, they just looked to see where the energy was (and yes, they apparently found a ton). In October 2016, we conducted two public inquiries. We got some really interesting stuff, but no definitive answers. There are certainly some strange things happening on Tasma Terrace, which isn’t surprising considering it has a strange history.

• All history provided by the National Trust of Victoria. All photos belong to Living Life In Full Spectrum.

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