ARCHIE, Mo. — KSHB 41 reporter Ryan Gamboa covers Cass County in Missouri. He also covers agricultural topics. Ryan was the first to report on this story and intends to stay on top of it. Share your story idea with Ryan.
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For nearly a decade, the neighbors along Dorsett Hill Road outside Archie, Missouri, looked the other way.
A haunted house had taken root on the rural stretch — a small, seasonal thing at first, the kind of homegrown attraction that feels right at home in farm country. But the Dorsett Hill Haunt kept growing. By 2025, it drew upwards of 4,000 visitors a season, and the road that had always been quiet was no longer quiet.
Last week, Cass County ordered it to shut down.
The property where Troy Chamness runs the haunted house with his wife is zoned rural-residential. Under county code, haunted houses are classified as "attractions," which aren't permitted in that zoning class. The county's codes director told me a special use permit isn't an option either, leaving Chamness with few paths forward weeks before Halloween.
"It's not looking good to be open this year," Chamness said.
A formal complaint filed by Karen, a neighbor whose family has lived along Dorsett Hill Road for nearly 70 years, triggered the shutdown. Her family even donated land a few decades ago to help the county extend Dorsett Hill Road to the line.
She was clear about one thing from the start. She didn't close the haunt. The county did.
"I didn't shut them down. The county did," Karen explained. "Cass County is the one that sent out the cease and desist letter."
Karen said she and her neighbors tolerated the event for about a decade while it stayed small.
But as crowds grew, so did the problems. Cars lined both sides of the road last year. Visitors sometimes waited two hours to get through the haunted house, she said, meaning vehicles sat parked on the road for hours at a time. She said there were nights the road was effectively impassable.
Her concern isn't abstract. Karen's husband died four years ago during the summer. An ambulance was her only chance at saving him, and the memory of that has never left her. The idea of emergency vehicles getting stuck in Halloween traffic on her road is not a hypothetical she's willing to accept.
"Minutes count. Minutes count when you have an emergency, when it's your wife, your husband, your daughter, your son," she said with tears in her eyes.
Chamness himself acknowledged that a fire truck takes approximately 15 to 20 minutes to reach the area under normal conditions without traffic. He stated the congestion issues the haunted house faced last year were resolved by the end of the season.
The volunteers also opened an additional acre-and-a-half of space on the property for cars to park and added a culvert to help traffic flow.
Karen said she tried to be patient. She said no one from the haunt ever approached her or her neighbors to discuss the congestion or ask what might make it workable.
Chamness also said she never approached them with concerns. After hoping the situation would improve on its own, she filed the complaint.
"Somebody had to step up. If you don't stand for something, then you don't stand at all," Karen explained.
Chamness said he did have a plan. He submitted a proposal to the county on Monday, stating he would open an additional acre and a half of parking, nearly twice what was available in 2025, to address the congestion.
In addition, he added staff to instruct the flow of traffic. He said the county hasn't been receptive, and he believes the conversation with Karen never happened because she never gave it a chance.
"She never approached us so we couldn't discuss that plan," he said.
Karen pushed back on that framing. She said her goal was never to end the event, only to see it done responsibly.
"I don't have a problem doing their event, but let's do it the right way," she told KSHB 41 Cass County Reporter Ryan Gamboa.
Since KSHB 41 first broke the story and the Dorsett Hill Haunt announced its closure this season, Karen said she has faced a torrent of online harassment. People from outside the area have contacted her on Facebook, calling her a horrible person. Some comments have included calls to identify her by her full name and share her personal information.
Karen is a widow who lives alone, and she said the attention has frightened her.
"I'm a little afraid. I was concerned about being on camera with you," she told Gamboa. "There are people on Facebook that aren't even from this area that have contacted me. Telling me I'm a horrible human being."
Chamness said his family has tried to tamp down the anger among supporters.
"We told them, we understand you're frustrated but don't threaten anybody. There's no need for that," Chamness explained. "We are a small community. Everyone knows each other."
For his part, Chamness said he isn't ready to give up. He said the county floated a compromise: move the entire operation to a 20-acre site. However, with more than $40,000 in lumber and props built into the attraction, that's not realistic.
"The compromise they had was to take everything you got and move it to a 20-acre spot," Chamness said. "That isn't going to happen. It's just no way."
He said he hopes to salvage something from the season and is still looking for a path forward.
"We're not giving up yet," he said optimistically. "We may not be able to open this year. We're hoping to be able to have some special events, and then we'll see what happens."
KSHB 41 reached out to the Cass County Commission for comment and did not hear back.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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