Employees open up after American Scare Grounds closes due to bankruptcy

ELM MOTT, Texas (KWTX) – The only haunted house in Waco recently announced it is permanently closed and employees say it has been kept in the dark the entire time.

He even did work for owner Robert Crane before they realized he didn’t have the money to pay for it.

Public records show Crane filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy and says he never paid them.

“We didn’t even know about the bankruptcy. He kept us in the dark about all the paperwork,” said Edward Riley, the haunted house’s field manager.

He worked there for more than a decade and he says it’s been business as usual since Crane took over.

They say it was the start of this Halloween season when things changed drastically.

“This year has brought a big change. “We noticed that he didn’t keep an eye on the number of customers, who was on his staff, there was simply no structure anymore,” says Rebecca Riley, who also worked in management there for years.

Riley says they usually take a break at the end of the season over the holidays and then come back before the start of summer to make repairs.

That didn’t happen this year. They didn’t hear word until two months before the opening.

“We didn’t hear from him until August,” Riley said. And they say they worked for free without knowing it.

A Chapter 13 bankruptcy gives owners more time to plan how to pay off their debts. However, Crane’s attorney told KWTX that his property was foreclosed on in June after Crane failed to make payments under the bankruptcy agreement.

Then everything was officially closed.

“Everything we’ve been doing for over a decade, almost two decades. Our heart and soul were in that place,” Riley says.

We contacted Crane several times but received no response.

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