In her Atlanta home, 77-year-old Minnie Winston was bathing on the evening, of September 8, 1987. Stepping out of the tub she noticed bloodstains on the bathroom floor.
Minnie, who was alarmed, hurried to their bedroom where William, her 79-year-old husband, was sound asleep. After waking him up they looked at the mostly small droplets of blood together. They questioned if a rodent—possibly an animal—had sustained injuries inside the home.
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William went outside the house to look around. They soon realized they were not dealing with a hurt rodent. Blood was virtually everywhere in the house, William discovered. The majority of the rooms’ walls as well as the basement’s cramped, inaccessible crawl tunnels were covered in it. It was pouring from beneath kitchen appliances and the television and oozing from the floorboards.
The Winstons immediately called the police.
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The cops initially looked for any indications of a break-in when they arrived. They couldn’t locate any.
They inquired as to recent visits to the Winstons. Not at all.
Steve Cartwright, a homicide detective, later claimed that throughout his ten years of employment, he had never witnessed anything like this. It was “an extremely strange situation,” he declared “I’m guessing it was an animal. Hope that’s all it was.”
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When a house in Atlanta suddenly starts SEEPING BLOOD in 1987 it quickly becomes an unsolved mystery. Will the answer to this bizarre story ever be found? pic.twitter.com/shbDRmHGGz
— They Will Kill: A True Crime Podcast (@theywillkill) December 12, 2020
The Winstons didn’t have any pets. No rodents were found in the house.
The blood’s human origin was confirmed later by lab results.
With no leads and no explanation, the police soon gave up on the case. They were happy that no one had been killed. The only thing they could affirm was that Winnie or William did not supply the blood, which was type O and they were both type A.
Story from 1987 of a bleeding house in 🇺🇸Atlanta, Georgia. After renting house for 22 years,woman stepped out of bathtub & human blood splotches were on bathroom floor, through house & on walls. No explanations were found & no further occurrences reported.https://t.co/ivqk0sE839 pic.twitter.com/zVqZFRFMGW
— 🌺Liz🌺 (@Lizisms1) May 3, 2021
In 1987, the case became viral, and reporters and amateur detectives flocked to the Winston residence.
After the heat subsided, Curt Rowlett, a freelance writer, carried out his own inquiry. Minnie consented to an interview, but Rowlett soon encountered a roadblock. The substance, according to Minnie, was actually “rust and mud mixed with water.”
When human blood overtakes a house amid racial turmoil in 1987 Atlanta, a mystery opens up that persists to this day.
Read the chilling previously untold true story brought to life by writer @BigEasyPress: The Blood House At Fountain Drive. https://t.co/L7sPwfczkb pic.twitter.com/V3ls0Fj1cL
— Truly*Adventurous (@TrlyAdventurous) October 28, 2020
Rowlett thinks that Minnie was both in denial about the facts and did not want to relive the notoriety surrounding the case. If the substance had been blood, she allegedly said, “she would not be willing to stay in the house anymore.”
I wrote about the true events surrounding the unsolved case of The Blood House in Atlanta for @TrlyAdventurous 👻 https://t.co/UzdJ3Txxl8
— Danny Cherry Jr. / deecherrywriter.bsky.social (@DeeCherryWriter) October 28, 2020
The Georgia State Crime Laboratory did, however, certify that the substance was indeed human blood.
In this case, there are many different haunting, ghost, and poltergeist theories. The Winstons were frequently questioned about if they had ever witnessed any paranormal activity inside of their house. They rejected it. In the 22 years, they had lived in this home, this was the first event of this nature.
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— The Coach (@mysteriousbrews) October 22, 2019
Another hypothesis is that someone from the Winston family intentionally drew blood as a cruel joke. There were reportedly conflicts between the elderly couple and their adult children. William, who required kidney dialysis, and his daughter, a nurse, allegedly had access to human blood.
Police hypothesized that either the Winstons faked the incident to get their kids’ attention or that their daughter did it to get her parents’ mental incapacitation officially recognized for her own financial gain.
Both of these hypotheses were rejected, and the case was terminated without an explanation.
The bleeding house of Atlanta, which has no known counterpart in history, continues to rank among the oddest and strangest mysteries on record.