Phantasmal Crime

We often wonder why spirits stay behind in haunted locations. Many times the answer is that some sort of trauma was experienced. And digging even deeper, we sometimes find that a spirit is at unrest because their case hasn't been solved or even perhaps that their body hasn't been discovered. I've been collecting ghost stories from around the world for years. I found this one out of India that happened not too many years ago. This is the story about a murdered couple who wouldn't rest until their bodies were found.  Pune (poo nuh) is located in Western India and is one of the largest hubs for IT and manufacturing in the country. Nicknamed the "Oxford of the East," many residents are highly educated and this is a major cultural center. A major settlement here dates to 858 AD when the Rashtrakuta dynasty ruled. Many dynasties followed along with British rule and several temples were built in the city. Pune became a center of social reform and even Ghandi spent ti...

Not too far from Malabar Farm State Park in Ohio sits Pleasant Valley Cemetery. One marble grave marker stands a bit higher than the rest of the headstones around it and across the top is embossed the family name Rose. This marks the final resting place of three members of the Rose family who all died within a thirty day time frame. The cause of death was not some hideous plague that swept through town. The family was murdered. That revelation is horrific enough, but what makes this story truly chilling is that they were murdered by one of their own. David S. Rose was born in 1829. He married Rebecca Easter in 1855 and they had two children, Walter and Celia. When the Civil War broke out, David enlisted with the Union Army at the age of 32. He served with distinguished honor in the 63rd Infantry Regiment Ohio. He mustered out in 1865. Walter had been born in 1857, before the war, but Celia came much later. She wasn't born until 1873. Celia, or Ceely as everybody call...

The Florida Everglades is a network of impenetrable swamps, snaking waterways and thick cypress forests. This would be a great place to make a body disappear and there is a dark history here of disappearances, death and hauntings. Conservative numbers claim that there have been 175 unsolved murders here since 1965. People claim that the Everglades is haunted and there are stories going back to the times of the earliest settlers here, the Calusa tribe, that speak of a dark energy and power. Some might say that Native American tribes tell stories of places having an evil essence, but that they are just that, stories.  But what do we make of the ramblings of one of the most heinous serial killers of all time, Henry Lee Lucas. Lucas claimed that an occultist group known as The Hand of Death used the Everglades as a meeting place for practicing rituals and had some kind of paramilitary training camp there. He joined the group here and made what may have been his first murd...