The Mysterious ToysRUs Ghost

© 2024 BY BOBETTE BRYAN

Sometimes buildings are built on haunted land, and the owner of the property is forced to deal with unexpected paranormal activity. In Sunnyvale California, such a haunting at the ToysRUs made the national news.

The store was built in 1970 on land that used to be part of the Murphy farm. The ghostly activity began shortly after the store opened with employees reporting odd happenings. Faucets turned on and off by themselves. Balls would bounce down aisles and toys flew off of shelves. Employees often heard a disembodied voice call their name, felt the shivery touch of an invisible hand, or shook as frigid air jetted down their backs, inducing chills.

Terrified, many employees quit, including store managers.

Stories about the haunting spread in the late 70s, attracting renowned psychic medium Sylvia Browne who held several séances in the store, one of which was shown on the popular television program, “That’s Incredible.”

According to Browne, she was able to communicate with the ghost, and discovered that he was a Swedish preacher named Johnny Johnson who’d worked on the Murphy farm in the 1880s in exchange for room and board. Johnny seemed to be obsessed with a woman name Elizabeth.

“As he walked down the hall toward me, he kept saying, ‘Have mercy on me, Beth,” Browne said.

Elizabeth was the Murphy family’s daughter whom Johnny fell in love with, however, the young lady failed to return his affections. Browne claimed she ran off with a lawyer from the East Coast, leaving Johnny heartbroken. The sad story had an even sadder ending when Johnny accidentally cut his leg with an axe while he was chopping wood. Alone, he was unable to get help and bled out.

Browne repeatedly returned to the store for further communication with Johnny whom she referred to as “the most stubborn, ornery, argumentative ghost I’ve met.”

“I’ve tried many times to explain to him that his lifetime as Johnny Johnson has ended,” she wrote. “He finally got so tired of my nagging him about it that he gave me an ultimatum: ‘If you tell me I’m dead one more time, I’m not going to talk to you anymore. ‘”

Browne supposedly let the matter drop and chatted with Johnny about other topics such as the happenings in the store. She claimed to have developed a “quasi-friendship” with him.

Returning to the store with photographer, Bill Tidwell they caught what they claimed was photographic evidence of the haunting in the store in 1978, Using a combination of the psychic’s abilities and an infrared camera, the show reported that it caught an image of a ghostly figure in the aisle of the toy store at the precise moment that Browne was communicating with Johnny.

But how much of her story was true?

The prominent Murphy family, founders of the area, had indeed owned a farm on that spot, but Browne’s details about the tragedy fell short of the mark. Elizabeth never eloped with a lawyer. In 1863, she married William Taaffe, the son of a wealthy dry-goods merchant from San Francisco.

Sadly, she died at only 30-years-old in 1875, several years before Johnny reportedly worked on the farm.

And finally, there’s no evidence that Johnny Johnson ever existed—no death record, census records, or other documents to breathe life into Browne’s account. Nothing. At a time when newspapers thrilled at reporting the tragic and sensational, no account exists in California newspapers about a grisly ax death on the Murphy property.

Then who was the ghost? Other possible candidates included Elizabeth’s brother who died in the family home in 1851 from consumption and Elizabeth’s husband who passed away in 1869.

Then there’s the sad 1894 tragedy of Fred Hoffman, Elizabeth and William’s son, Martin Taaffe’s brother-in-law, who died on the property. He was working on a pump in the farm well and was unaware that a leaking gas tank was nearby. After he failed to join the family for dinner, they formed a search party and found him dead at the bottom of the well. The cause of death was asphyxiation from the gas fumes. Martin went down the well to retrieve the body, foolishly lighting a candle to guide his way, resulting in an explosion with the potency to blow him out of the well. Though badly burned, Martin miraculously survived.

Or perhaps the entity is none of these but a soul that has been forgotten with time. Through genealogy research, I’ve learned that it’s not uncommon for the poor from the Victorian era to leave no or only a scant paper trail. And then some people didn’t want to be remembered—perhaps because they had something to hide.

The haunting could even have been the result of a non-human entity, perhaps a lesser demon, who was toying with Browne and feeding her a bunch of lies.

The Sunnyvale ToysRUs closed in 2018, and the building was abandoned until it was used, appropriately, as a Spirit Halloween shop. Afterward, it was converted into a children’s sport park. Though we will never know the identity of the spirit who haunted the store, it likely still roams the property today.

–The End–

© Bobette Bryan, 2024