The Bleeding Walls in Atlanta
The house that was seeping blood and mystified police
On the evening of September 8, 1987, 77-year-old Minnie Winston was taking a shower in her Atlanta home. When she stepped out, she saw bloodstains on the bathroom floor.
Alarmed, Minnie quickly ran to her 79-year-old husband, William, who was sleeping in their bedroom. Together, they investigated the blood — mostly small droplets. They wondered whether an animal, possibly a rodent, had been wounded in the house.
William left the bathroom to look around the house. Soon it became clear that they were not dealing with a wounded rodent. William found blood seeping from almost everywhere in the house. It was on the walls in most rooms and in narrow, inaccessible crawl spaces in the basement. It was oozing from the floors and seeping from under kitchen appliances and the television.
The Winstons called the police.
The investigation
When the police arrived, they first checked for any signs of a break-in. They didn’t find any.
They asked whether the Winstons had had any recent visitors. They hadn't.
Homicide Detective Steve Cartwright later said that in his ten years of service he had never seen anything like this. He said…
