The Monitor in Room 204

A Paranormal Case File — Incident #2026-0912-CHI
Date of Incident: September 5, 2026
Location: St. Jude's Mercy Hospital (Abandoned East Wing), Chicago, Illinois
Lead Investigator: Dr. Elaine Voss, Paranormal Research Institute (PRI)
Status: Active. Multiple audio recordings. One hospitalisation. No physical source identified.

1. Initial Report

On September 7, 2026, the Chicago Police Department received a report from St. Jude's Mercy Hospital security supervisor Ronald Briggs, 51. He stated that over the previous three nights, two security guards assigned to patrol the abandoned East Wing had heard a child's voice emanating from a decommissioned baby monitor left in a storage room. The East Wing has been closed since 1982, its power cut, its corridors sealed with steel doors. The monitor, a Fisher-Price model discontinued in 1987, was found in a box of obsolete medical equipment and had no batteries. It had not functioned in decades.

The first guard, Jamal Lewis, 29, refused to return to the wing after his shift on September 5. The second, Carla Ortiz, 42, collapsed during her patrol on September 6 and was admitted to the hospital's emergency department with symptoms of acute panic attack and auditory hallucinations. She was released the next day and immediately filed a workers' compensation claim citing psychological injury. Her claim included a handwritten statement describing what she heard: "A little boy, no older than five, singing 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' and then crying for his mother. The voice came from the monitor, but the monitor wasn't on."

The hospital administration initially dismissed the reports as pranks or stress-induced episodes. However, on September 7, Briggs himself spent the night in the East Wing with a portable audio recorder. At 02:14 a.m., the monitor activated. His recording captured 47 seconds of audio. The file was submitted to the police along with his statement. CPD Officer Maria Vasquez logged the evidence but closed the case on September 10, citing "no criminal activity." The audio file was leaked to PRI by a hospital employee on September 13.

(Source: CPD Incident Report #2026-0912-3341, Vasquez, M.)

2. The Audio Evidence

PRI obtained the original WAV file from Officer Vasquez's evidence locker via a Freedom of Information request. The recording, labelled EastWing_0200-0300.wav, is 60 minutes long. We have published an excerpt with timestamped analysis on our secure portal.

Key audio events:

00:00:00 – 02:13:58 — Continuous low-level ambient noise. Occasional creaks from building settling. Briggs can be heard breathing and occasionally muttering to himself.
02:13:59 — A distinct electronic click, followed by a rising static hiss. The monitor's power indicator was later confirmed to be non-functional.
02:14:02 — A child's voice, male, estimated age 4-5 years. The first words are a fragment of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star": "…twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are…" The singing stops abruptly.
02:14:19 — A pause of 7.2 seconds. Then: "Mommy? I'm cold. Mommy, where are you?"
02:14:34 — The sound of soft crying, then three distinct knocks. Spectrographic analysis by PRI's Dr. Hannah Lim indicates the knocks originated from within the monitor's speaker housing, not from any external source (Appendix A: Audio Localization).
02:14:46 — A final whisper, partially obscured by static: "…burning. It's so hot. I want to go home."
02:14:47 — The static ceases. The monitor clicks off. The remainder of the recording captures only Briggs's heavy breathing and, at 02:15:03, his voice: "Jesus Christ."

We ran the audio through multiple filters. No evidence of tampering or pre-recorded injection. The voice is consistent with a child's vocal formant frequencies. No matching voice was found in any database of known recordings, living or deceased.

3. Witness Accounts

3.1 Security Guard Carla Ortiz
PRI interviewed Ms. Ortiz at her home on September 18, 2026. She was visibly shaken. The following is transcribed from our recording (Appendix B).

"I've worked at St. Jude's for eleven years. I know the East Wing is off-limits. But that night they needed someone to walk the perimeter because the alarm kept triggering. I drew the short straw. I was on the second floor, near the old paediatric ward. I heard a baby crying. I thought—maybe a squatter, a homeless woman with an infant. I followed the sound to the storage room. The door was ajar.

The monitor was on a shelf, covered in dust. And it was on. A little green light, bright as anything. There's no outlet in that room. There's no battery in that monitor. I picked it up and the crying got louder, and then a voice said, 'Help me, lady. The fire is coming.' I dropped it. I ran. I don't remember the rest. The doctor said I was screaming when they found me in the lobby."

3.2 Security Supervisor Ronald Briggs
Briggs agreed to a phone interview on September 20. He is a pragmatic man, a retired army sergeant with no prior interest in the paranormal.

"I thought the kids were playing a prank. Jamal is young, Carla's been under stress, I figured it was nothing. I set up the recorder to prove it. I sat in that room for two hours, feeling like an idiot. Then the monitor turned on. I saw the light. I heard the voice. I have never been so scared in my life. I packed up and went straight to the station. I don't believe in ghosts. But I believe in evidence. The evidence is on that tape."

4. Historical Research

PRI archival researcher Dr. Peter Chand cross-referenced hospital records and local news archives.

On December 14, 1982, a fire broke out in the East Wing paediatric ward of St. Jude's Mercy Hospital. The fire originated in a storage closet on the second floor, spreading rapidly through outdated insulation. Twelve children died, most from smoke inhalation. A further eight were rescued. The ward was permanently closed and the wing sealed off rather than renovated. A plaque in the main hospital lobby lists the victims' names.

Among the deceased was Timothy Bryce, age 4, who had been admitted for pneumonia. Witnesses reported that Timothy was heard singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" shortly before the fire alarms sounded. His mother, Elaine Bryce, died in 2019. In a 2015 interview with the Chicago Tribune on the anniversary of the fire, she said: "Timmy would sing when he was scared. I always told him, 'Mummy's here.' I still tell him that, wherever he is."

The storage room where the monitor was found is directly adjacent to the former paediatric ward, approximately 12 feet from Timothy Bryce's assigned bed.

(Source: Chicago Tribune, "St. Jude's Fire: 30 Years On", December 14, 2012; Hospital Admission Records, St. Jude's Mercy, December 1982, obtained via Illinois State Archives.)

5. The Monitor

The Fisher-Price "Nursery Monitor" model #111 was manufactured from 1981 to 1987. It operates at 49 MHz and requires six C-cell batteries. The device recovered from the East Wing contained no batteries. Its battery compartment was corroded and rusted shut, indicating decades of disuse. The power switch was found in the "OFF" position. The internal speaker cone was partially disintegrated, yet the audio recorded by Briggs shows a functioning speaker output at the time of the incident.

PRI's engineering team disassembled the unit. No hidden power source was found. No remote activation mechanism. The circuit board shows thermal damage consistent with exposure to high heat, possibly from the 1982 fire. How the device produced sound without power remains unexplained.

6. Preliminary Analysis

Dr. Voss's working hypotheses:

Stone Tape Theory / Residual Energy: The monitor may have acted as a receiver for imprinted environmental energy from the 1982 fire. The child's voice, the knocking, and the mention of heat and burning align with the final moments experienced by the victims. This would classify the phenomenon as a residual haunting—a psychic recording played back under specific conditions.
Instrumental Transcommunication (ITC): The monitor, despite lacking power, may have functioned as an ITC device, bridging auditory communication with a discarnate consciousness. The interactive nature of the voice—responding to the presence of a living person, asking for help—suggests intelligence rather than a simple playback loop.
Collective Hallucination / Environmental Factors: While three witnesses experienced the same event independently, and audio evidence exists, we cannot fully exclude infrasound or electromagnetic field anomalies affecting perception. However, the monitor's activation and the recorded audio require a physical mechanism that has not yet been identified.
Psychological Trigger: The connection to Timothy Bryce's history, and the proximity to his bed, may have created a resonant psychic environment. The living witnesses, particularly Briggs, were not previously aware of the 1982 fire or the child's name. This reduces the likelihood of prior suggestion.

PRI will conduct a follow-up investigation on the anniversary of the fire, December 14, 2026, with full spectrum cameras, EMF meters, and real-time audio monitoring.

7. Postscript and Current Status

As of October 2026, the East Wing remains sealed. A new security protocol requires at least two guards for all patrols, and the storage room has been locked. Two additional guards have requested transfers. The monitor is in PRI's evidence vault. A request to place a modern baby monitor in the storage room, live-streaming to a secure server, is pending hospital board approval.

Carla Ortiz has filed a lawsuit against the hospital for negligence and emotional distress. Her legal team has subpoenaed the audio recording as evidence.

We will update this case file as developments occur. If you are a healthcare worker or security professional who has experienced similar phenomena in a hospital setting, please contact PRI through our secure portal.

Working in environments where tragedy occurred can have profound psychological effects. If you're experiencing anxiety, sleeplessness, or fear after an unexplained event, please reach out to a mental health professional. Real or not, your distress is valid and deserves care.