Stratford’s John Zaffis, collector of the creepy, hosts SyFy show

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Stratford’s John Zaffis, collector of the creepy, hosts SyFy show
June 6, 2011
John Burgeson
ctpost.com

STRATFORD -- You've heard of haunted houses, graveyards with tortured souls and people possessed by evil spirits.

But there are others things out there that can creep you out. It might be a knickknack on your shelf, a strongbox in your cellar, a marionette in the attic or maybe a rusted pipe wrench in your garage.

That's where Stratford's John Zaffis comes in. The host of SyFy channel's new show, "Haunted Collector," Zaffis has made it his life's work to find the objects in people's homes that give them the heebie-jeebies.

"It could be a variety of things," he said. "Like grandmother's ring. Maybe she wanted someone else to inherit it."

For Zaffis, ferreting out the supernatural is a skill that's bred in the bone. His aunt and uncle are Lorraine and the late Ed Warren of Monroe, the ghost-hunting couple who founded the New England Society for Psychic Research, and who have investigated more than 10,000 hauntings in their career. Ed Warren was the twin brother of Zaffis' mother.

"When I was 16, I had a vision of my grandfather at the foot of my bed, and that's when I started questioning everything," he said. "Since then, I've been investigating the paranormal really heavy-duty over the years. It started with the items when, way back, a person brought me a knickknack that its owner said there was `something with it.' "

He has a museum of sorts in a large, solidly built barn behind his house in the north end of town. It's full of the oddities that, Zaffis said, were making lives miserable for their former owners. "It's a private museum," he's quick to point out.

On one wall are dozens of African tribal masks. "People pick them up on the Internet and whatnot, thinking that they're cool-looking," he said. "They are, but many of them were used in rituals and they represent different spirits, so there's no telling what sort of energies they have."

There's also a platoon of clown dolls. "Clowns really give people the creeps like you can't believe," he said. There's a number of Santa Claus dolls, cuddly rabbits and teddy bears, too.

"Don't let the outward appearances fool you -- energy can attach itself to just about anything," Zaffis said.

Other items are seemingly as innocent as can be. On a lower shelf is a crèche, probably from the 1960s, with plastic figures. "The owner said that the animals would move about on their own overnight," he said.

"Ninety percent of the people just want the item out of the house," he said. Most of the items in his collection have no real value; they're the sort of things that would sit out all day in the front yard at a tag sale without attracting much interest.

Zaffis, 54, is the leader of a five-member team that includes his adult children, Chris and Aimee, paranormal investigator Beth Ezzo and tech specialist Brian Cano. Aimee is a history buff, and Chris seems to have inherited his dad's knack for finding paranormal goings-on.

"If you're on a hockey team with Wayne Gretzky, you're going to see some amazing shots," said Cano, who lives on Staten Island. "And when you're with John Zaffis, you come across some pretty amazing things, too. Things were always happening that surprised us."

For the first season on SyFy, six episodes were taped, and two cases are investigated in each show. "Haunted Collector" airs on SyFy on Wednesdays at 9 p.m.; the second episode will be shown Wednesday.

In last week's episode, a woman's home in Louisiana was making its renters feel unwelcome. Zaffis and his team discovered a revolver buried under the house that may have been used in a homicide during a botched bank robbery a half-century ago.

In future episodes, the "Haunted Collector" team travels to such farflung states as California, New Mexico, Colorado and Maryland.