NOLA Ghosts

4. The Sultan's Palace

New Orleans, LA

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The home at 716 Dauphine Street has been known to generations of New Orleanians as "The Sultan's Palace". Owned by a wealthy planter, the home would be rented out in the 1870s to the younger brother of a Turkish sultan. He rented the home, claiming his brother would soon be joining him, wishing to establish business relations in the city. The young man would move in with a large entourage of muscular men and a harem of beautiful young women. The windows were covered with heavy light-blocking draperies. Rumor began to swirl of orgies and opium smoking going on within the house. The sound of music and the smoke of incense were said to emit from the house at all hours. It soon became widely known that the young Turk had not been sent by his brother, but had actually run off with a number of women from the sultan's harem, as well as a large portion of his fortune. Early one morning, months after this unusual household moved in, a passing neighbor noticed the gate on the front door was ajar. To his horror, he would also see what appeared to be blood streaming from beneath the front door of the home. When the police arrived, they discovered a gruesome scene: during the night, without a sound being heard by any of the neighbors, the entire household had been brutally slaughtered, their throats slit, and their blood drained, forming large pools that were said to cover nearly every inch of the floors in the home. As for the young brother of the Sultan, he was found in the back courtyard when police noticed a hand protruding from the ground. He had been buried alive there, gasping for breath, attempting to claw his way from his earthen prison. His spirit is still reported at the home, seen pacing the upper balconies, or sitting pensively in the windows. People walking by still report the sounds of parties from within: music and laughter spilling in to the street. The sweet perfume of incense still wafts from the home late of an evening. Others have reported unexplained screams emanating from the home in the early morning hours. Residents of the house claimed to have discovered unexplained stains upon the floorboards which will not respond to their attempts to clean them up, but which will mysteriously disappear before professional cleaners summoned to the house can get to work on them.