9 Ghost Town Terror Questions for Tim Wood and Sapphire Sandalo

The Ghost Town Terror is a new docuseries airing on both Travel Channel and discovery+. It all started because Karen Broussard bought a Montana ghost town. She moved herself and her three kids from Seattle to Gunslinger Gulch on the outskirts of Anaconda with dreams of a better life in Big Sky Country.

Instead, she found herself in a nightmare when the family all started having frightening experiences of the supernatural kind. It became clear that her 52-acre, 19 building property was one helluva real ghost town, emphasis on the ghosts.

Unable to solve the matter herself, she looked for help and that’s how she found paranormal investigator Tim Wood. Along with paranormal researcher Sapphire Sandalo, as well as psychic Sarah Lemos and Tim’s fellow investigator, Scott Di Lalla, the team sets to work to get Karen some answers —and hopefully peace.

I got a chance to briefly talk with Tim and Sapphire about The Ghost Town Terror and ask them some questions about the show. Here’s a summary of our chat, but I’ve also embedded the video below so you can enjoy the whole thing.

1. Was this the largest investigation you’ve ever undertaken?

While none of the buildings were massive, almost all 19 of them on the 52-acre property had paranormal activity.

Not only that, but all of the buildings came from other locations. In addition to physically investigating them, Tim and Sapphire also researched their history and interviewed a lot of people connected to Gunslinger Gulch in one manner or another.

It seemed like a massive project and I wondered if they’d ever tackled something so in-depth like that before.

Both answered resoundingly, “No!”

2. Which building did you use as base camp for your investigation?

The jail.

Which was one of the lesser active buildings, and as Tim put it, it felt, “Homey.”

3. Did you go see the Berkeley Pit?

Anaconda, Montana, isn’t too far from Butte and the Berkeley Pit, a former copper pit mine filled with toxic water. Sounds as heinous as it is. You wouldn’t want to swim in it, that’s for sure. Or, as Atlas Obscura put it, “If you were to drink large amounts of this lovely concoction it would kill you by corroding through your digestive system.”

However, if you want to see it —because it is a tourist attraction— a couple of bucks will grant you access to the viewing stand.

So did Tim and Sapphire go check it out?

Sapphire did not, but Tim did.

But they also said that even driving into Anaconda, there were these “giant hills,” per Sapphire that Tim explained was the leftover copper slag from the mines and that was also quite a site to see —for free!

Tim explained how breathtaking the whole area is, but how there’s also this other, darker side to it too.

4. Do you think that maybe the mining and the residual effects could impact the paranormal activity?

This was a tricky question because Tim and Sapphire didn’t know what they were dealing with. What was haunting the Broussards?

Was the land itself haunted? Or was it the buildings that had been moved there? Or was it the family? Perhaps it was a combo of one or more of those things that contributed to what Karen and her family experienced.

They had to investigate a lot of different things, and ended up finding answers they weren’t expecting that led them down new avenues.

However, one night during an investigation, they got an EVP that said, “Mine.”

On the show it appeared they took it to mean possessive, as in someone claiming something as theirs. But could it have been referring to “mining”?

They definitely did consider that and it was something they ended up exploring also.

5. Do you think the environment, the spirits, the history and just weighs on people so much to cause the immense despair people experience?

This was one of the trickier and more delicate questions to ask about The Ghost Town Terror. Tim and Sapphire discovered two former Gunslinger Gulch owners, a woman named Sherri and one that Pat, a former caretaker, called the Colorado Cowboy. Sherri was still alive but the Colorado Cowboy had taken his own life.

Speaking with Sherri was enlightening because she explained that prior to buying the ranch, she’d always been a happy, positive person. But something changed her during her time there. Depression set in, suicidal thoughts plagued her, and it got so bad that she knew if she didn’t flee, she’d die.

So that’s why she sold the property.

They also later learned that all signs pointed to the Colorado Cowboy going mad while living on the ranch also.

What Tim found fascinating was that people seem to get called out to places like Gunslinger Ranch. That was definitely what happened in Karen’s case, but during their talk with Sherri, she alluded to it too. Like the property found her.

He felt that it wasn’t a dark energy just affecting her though. He felt it affected the whole Anaconda area.

6. Sapphire, have you ever gotten unexplainably choked up before like you did in the Log Cabin?

I wanted to cry along with Sapphire when, during an investigation of the Log Cabin, she became very emotional without any explanation. It caught her by surprise and she had to take a break.

No, she’d never experienced anything like that before and she was “genuinely embarrassed” because it had happened so suddenly.

She definitely felt the building messes with people, mostly women, because Karen had a strong reaction to it also.

And then they end up discovering the Log Cabin is the building where the Colorado Cowboy called home on the property. {Insert dramatic music here: dun dun dun!}

7. Did you also feel called to the property and like you were supposed to be there?

They both agreed that yes they did because there were “weird synchronicities” that popped up that made it seem predestined they wound up there. And, yes, they felt they were supposed to be there to help Karen.

But Sapphire also felt like it was part of her bigger purpose to grow as a person.

8. People are gonna want to know: Does Tim still own his haunted house?

No. And he doesn’t recommend purposely buying one either because of the toll it can inflict on family. It’s something he never wants to do again.

9. Sapphire, knowing Karen and Tim’s stories, would you ever buy a haunted property?

“You know what’s funny? Me and my husband just bought a house and I think it’s haunted.”

After we all had a big laugh she quickly added, “But, like, good haunted. Not like bad vibes.”

But then she also said, “But, hey, time will tell. I don’t know. We’ll see.”

Watch the Interview

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What would you have asked Tim and Sapphire?