The home an Ohio woman shares with her boyfriend and kids is now at the center of an investigation into the discovery of could be human remains.
Katie Santry, a Columbus, Ohio resident, has captivated the internet after discovering a buried rug in her backyard—one that she now believes may contain human remains. What started as a routine home improvement project quickly spiraled into a viral saga that has social media buzzing with theories of ghosts, hidden bodies, and police investigations. Santry’s strange journey began when she and her boyfriend, Brandon, were digging up their lawn to build a fence.
As they shoveled deeper into the soil, the couple stumbled upon a carpet buried in the dirt. Initially, they brushed it off as an odd but insignificant discovery, never suspecting that it would soon spark a mystery that would take the internet by storm.
Days later, Santry was thrown into further confusion when she discovered her laptop screen mysteriously shattered. Her desk was in disarray, but no one in the house—her boyfriend, his kids, or her own son—claimed responsibility. Bewildered, she began to wonder if something supernatural might be at play.
“Is there a dead body in that rug? Or is it the ghost of the rug’s past?” Katie Santry mused, and soon turned to TikTok to share the strange occurrence with her followers.
In her first TikTok video, she playfully speculated, “What on earth happened? Is there a ghost breaking my stuff?”
According to a story from PEOPLE, Santry revealed another eerie detail that her next-door neighbor had passed away in their home the same day she and Brandon moved in last October, and shortly after, the neighboring house was boarded up.
“It was just a series of weird, coincidental events that, with a creative mind, could be construed as ghostly,” she added.
As her TikTok blew up, so did the pressure from followers to investigate further. Comments poured in urging her to call the police and get to the bottom of the mysterious carpet. What initially seemed like a joke turned serious as Santry realized she had a massive online audience invested in her backyard mystery.
“When I called the police and asked them, ‘Hey, do you want to come to my house to look at a rug?’ I felt insane,” she admitted in a recent broadcast interview. However, to her surprise, officers showed up but found nothing concerning—at least at first.
Determined to get answers, Santry planned to host a BYO shovel party with friends to dig out the rug once and for all. But before they could take matters into their own hands, the local homicide department called, offering to send sniffing dogs to investigate the buried object. Santry recorded the entire event on TikTok live, with over 100,000 viewers tuned in to witness the outcome.
“I really didn’t think anything was going to come of it,” she recalled, admitting she thought it would all end as a funny story. But when the first dog sat down, signaling something of interest, Santry began to panic. “I thought maybe it was just an accident. And when the second dog did it too, I freaked out.”
With two police dogs alerting at the same spot, the investigation has now taken a darker turn. While no official findings have been confirmed, the viral story has only deepened in mystery as the internet continues to speculate about what lies beneath the surface of Santry’s backyard. Could it be a long-buried secret, or just a strange coincidence? Only time—and perhaps more TikToks—will tell.
Watch the full interview with the homeowner above.