A young couple bought one of America's most terrifying homes last year - and found what appeared to be a human skeleton under their front porch.Kyle Wheeler, 37, and Aleha Jane, 33, bought Bissell Mansion in St Louis for $205,000 without ever seeing the inside.The historic home - one of the oldest in the city - is now a subject of the HGTV show Scariest House in America, which aims to find the spookiest residence in the country.The first week after the couple bought the mansion, a motion detector alarm in the basement would go off every night. The couple set up a camera in the basement, but it never captured anything. 'The weird thing is when I would get there, it would stop,' Wheeler told the St. Louis Post Dispatch. The alarm kept going off every night until the couple disabled it. Wheeler also reported hearing footsteps from the second floor while on the ground floor. In June as renovations were underway after HGTV finished filming their episode, Wheeler discovered what appeared to be a human skeleton under the old front porch. The Bissell Mansion is one of the oldest brick houses in St. Louis The house was built between 1812 and 1820 by Captain Lewis Bissell who served in the War of 1812 Kyle Wheeler, 37, and his wife, Aleha Jane, 33, purchased the Bissell Mansion last year for $205,000 without ever seeing the insideHe called the police, who told him to seal the area until an investigation could be carried out.But the creepiest phenomenon might be the mysterious man who stands in a corner which visitors to the mansion over the years have reported seeing.Contractors working on the house in recent weeks have also reported seeing a man dressed in black standing at the window. Wheeler's wife, Jane, admits she does not feel entirely comfortable when she is in the house alone. The Bissell Mansion sits atop a hill in St. Louis' College Hill neighborhood.At least 13 people are confirmed to have died in the house which was built by Captain Lewis Bissell between 1812 and 1820, making it one of the oldest brick houses in the city. The more than 200-year-old house was at the heart of a slave plantation owned by the captain, who served in the War of 1812. Some of the people who died there may have been burried in the front yard, and there used to be a private cemetary on the land. Today, the mansion in fairly poor shape and in need of serious renovations. Since the Wheelers purchased the house, they have experienced a series of creepy incidents The creepiest phenomenon might be the mysterious man who stands in a corner which visitors to the mansion over the years have reported seeing Captain Bissell owned slaves, but a network of caves underneath his house may have been part of the Underground Railroad according to a local historianThe owners of the winning house on HGTV's show will receive a $150,000 prize, which the Wheelers said would be helpful but the house will need much more work than the sum can pay for. The Bissell mansion used to be the site of a murder mystery dinner theatre, where Hercule Poirot style comedic shows were performed along with a meal. Before that, it was a fruit-growing plantation with six slaves and two Irish indentured servants. Because of the many mulberry trees in the surrounding area which used to be part of the 16,000 acre plantation, Wheeler thinks they probably grew the fruit. Captain Bissell was injured in the War of 1812 in the Battle of Lundy's Lane, one of the bloodiest engagements of the war. He built his house on a fortified position at the top of a steep hill. A hole in the basement used to lead to caves beneath the house, but it has long been sealed. There are rumors that the caves led all the way to the Mississipi River. A local historian told the Wheelers that the house and caves may have been a stop on the Underground Railroad. Although the Bissells owned slaves, some abolitionists did so as a cover. The Bissells sold the mansion in 1882 to the Kraft family. Three of their children died of diptheria just 11 days later, and a fourth died after another year. The house was passed off between owners several times afterwards before becoming a rooming house. In 1953, there was a plan to knock it down to make room for an expressway, but the Landmarks Association of St. Louis saved it from demolition in 1957. It then briefly became a restaurant before it was turned into a murder mystery dinner theater. When COVID hit, the theater closed in March 2020 and never reopened. The Wheelers bought it four years later in 2024. The couple hopes to restore the mansion to its former grandeur. They expect renovations will take two years, and they hope to revive the murder mystery dinner theatre and open rooms on the second floor for people who want to spend the night.