In my opinion, this sounds closer to Richard Matheson's Hell House (when I think heinous deeds, I almost immediately think Emeric Belasco). If not that, then maybe something slightly tamer, such as the lore surrounding Ohio's own Franklin Castle? In 2010, we had a source via Twitter named Emeric Belasco, and if I remember correctly Dr. Jimmy went into get detail about the name's source material in that year's Speculation thread. Some online sources that I’ve found cite Hell House as being loosely based on two real life haunts (Franklin Castle, originally the Tiedemann House, in Cleveland, Ohio, and Waverly Hills Sanitarium near Louisville, Kentucky).