Rose Hall

The tales of the murderous Annie Palmer of Rose Hall still frighten children in Jamaica.

Built in 1770, Rose Hall was a sugar cane plantation and home to Palmer and her husband. Palmer grew up in Haiti and learned  voodoo from her nanny, which would later serve her in her dastardly schemes.

When Palmer became sexually unsatisfied with her husband, she began sleeping with slaves on the plantation. In order to keep them quiet about the affairs, she either killed these men or ordered other slaves to do so. Wanting to gain sole possession of her husband's wealth, she poisoned her first husband and later married and killed two other men. Her sexual escapades continued as well. In case she encountered a man unwilling to pleasure her or a slave trying to escape, Palmer had a pit dug 16 feet (4.8 meters) below the house where she would banish these people.  As her nefarious reputation spread around the island, she became known as the White Witch.

According to legend, Palmer cast a fatal  voodoo hex on a housekeeper who caught the eye of one of her lovers. Supposedly, the housekeeper's grandfather later strangled Palmer to death. Her body was buried in an aboveground coffin in the eastern wing of Rose Hall. According to the lore, the White Witch's spirit, along with those of the slaves she had murdered, continued to haunt the house. When new tenants attempted to move into Rose Hall, they were quickly driven away from the haunted grounds. Eventually, in 1965, a couple bought the house and converted it into a museum. Yet even today, visitors and employees have reported hearing men's screams and doors slamming, as well as other paranormal phenomena.

Dean house 

On Sept. 30, 1955, actor James Dean got into his Porsche 550 Spyder with his mechanic Rolf Wuetherich and set out for a race. On the way, Dean was involved in a deadly car crash that injured Wuetherich and killed Dean. According to legend, however, Dean's Porsche wasn't finished spreading misery. For instance, the car supposedly broke a man's legs when it rolled off its trailer during transport. The list of tragedies associated with the car grew longer every year until the car was, perhaps mercifully, lost during transport.

The Deane House in Alberta, Canada is the haunted house equivalent of James Dean's cursed set of wheels. And just like Dean's Porsche, the house was mobile. Built in 1906 for Superintendent Captain Richard Deane of the Mounted Police, the house was moved from its original location in 1914 to make way for the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. Only after moving again in 1929 and becoming a boarding house, however, did the house become  magnet for tragedy. In 1933, a 14-year-old boy, suffering from epilepsy, took his own life in the house's attic after being bullied at school.

Perhaps the most shocking event in the history of the Deane house, however, was the 1952 murder of Irma Umperville by her husband Roderick. Roderick stabbed and strangled his wife in front of their two children before killing himself in one of the home's apartments, adding one more tragic tale to the home's history.

With such a violent past, it's no surprise that some say the house remains haunted today. Reports of strange sightings and unexplained laughter emanating from the foyer have surfaced for years.

One look at the name of the next house on our list and you'll immediately know why ghosts plague its residents.

Monte Cristo Homestad 

Theories vary regarding why some houses are haunted and others seem free of things that go bump in the night, but as we've seen from several other examples on our list, tragedy seems to be a common thread. It's no surprise, then, that the Monte Cristo Homestead should have such a well-known reputation for paranormal activity. Originally built for the Crawley family in 1884, the Monte Cristo Homestead initially seemed like an ideal setting for the family and its growing fortune, but that soon changed when one of the Crawley's servants dropped their infant daughter down a staircase, killing her. The servant insisted a force unseen pushed the child from her hands.

In 1910, Christopher William Crawley, the head of the Crawley household, died of heart failure. His passing marked a change in his wife, Elizabeth Crawley. She became extremely reclusive over the next two decades of her life and, according to some, extremely cruel. Several tragic deaths took place at the household while Elizabeth lived there. A pregnant servant fell to her death from a balcony, and another servant, this time a young boy, was burned to death.

After Elizabeth died, the house fell into disrepair and suffered at the hands of looters and vandals before Reginald Ryan, a local man, purchased it in 1963. He and his wife Olive immediately knew their home was haunted. Lights acted strangely, and the couple could feel the presence of ghosts and eerily cold spots throughout the property. Psychics were invited to the home and reported strong paranormal activity as well, raising suspicions that the house held terrible secrets in its walls. Today, visitors can test those claims themselves by taking a tour of the property and its grounds.

Like the Monte Cristo Homestead, the next house on our list was the height of luxury when it was first constructed, and its outward beauty hid a horrible secret. Read on to find out more.

Whaley house 

The Whaley House in San Diego was originally built on the execution grounds of James Robinson, nicknamed Yankee Jim. In 1852, Yankee Jim was convicted of grand larceny and sentenced to  death by hanging. The hangman set the noose improperly, allowing Jim's feet to graze the ground, prolonging the hanging process. In 1856, Thomas Whaley bought the land where Yankee Jim had been killed and built a house for his own family. The youngest Whaley daughter, Lillian, said she could hear the sound of boots clomping through the house and suspected it to be the ghost of Yankee Jim.

Today, the Whaley House is a registered  historic site and museum. Visitors and employees have reported seeing or hearing the ghosts of former owners Thomas and Anna Whaley. According to staff and guests, Thomas' ghost usually resides near the landing at the top of the staircase, while Anna's stays downstairs or in the garden. Television host Regis Philbin is among those who claimed to have seen Mrs. Whaley's ghost. Scents of cigar smoke and perfume have also mysteriously arisen at times. Because of the frequency of such ghost sightings, the Whaley House has been cited as one of the most haunted houses in the United States.

Faces of Belmez 

This small cottage in the southern Spanish province of Jaen, in the town of Belméz, isn't haunted by ghosts, per se. The house is built, however, on burial grounds dating back to 1830. Inside the kitchen, the floor contains an unsolved mystery that has puzzled scientists and laymen for decades. Maria Goméz Pereira, who lived in the house, discovered a face peering up at her from her kitchen floor in 1971. Instead of a two-dimensional apparition, the face resembled a plaster casting that seemed to rise from beneath the house, as though a head was buried right below it.

Spooked by the strange façade, Pereira and her neighbors attempted to get rid of it by chipping away the cement with an axe. Yet upon doing so, they revealed more face casts, this time of older men and children. As word spread about the so-called "faces of Belméz," scientists stepped in to verify their authenticity and test whether they were paintings or fake castings orchestrated by Pereira and her neighbors. The painting theory was ruled out, but no conclusive evidence exists to pinpoint exactly how the faces got there. Nonetheless, the faces have engendered much skepticism.