Ep. 57 - Death in the Judd White House

In 2025, the Michigan Bell Building in Grand Rapids, Michigan sold for over $18 million to a New York investment firm. This eight-story office building is home to AT&T today and while a 101-year-old historic building in downtown Grand Rapids is interesting, it is the murder that occurred at the home that once stood on this site before the building that makes this site intriguing and haunted. The Judd White House stood here and was the scene of a murder-suicide with a wooden leg as the weapon.

The Judd White House was named for the family of Mayor George H. White. White had been a unique figure in Grand Rapids. He was a pioneer of the Grand River valley. In 1855, he moved from Saratoga, New York to Grand Rapids. In Grand Rapids, he had held many offices of trust and as the Grand Rapids Evening Press wrote in his obituary in 1902, "his services were sought in many important cases which figure in the history of the country. Early he was elected justice of the peace and afterward Circuit court commissioner. Later he was elected city attorney and after that was made acting prosecuting attorney and at another time he was assistant district attorney of Western Michigan. Well versed in legal lore his clients were numerous and even after he had retired old friends sought his advice and guidance." After he retired, he spent much of his time collecting pioneer stories and as the paper continued, "Mr. White was a 'night-hawk' if ever there was one, being seen on the streets and at the offices of the newspapers at all times of the night, after the streets were cleared of nearly all except the patrolmen."

Try as I might, I couldn't find much on the original history of the house, other than that former Mayor George White and his daughter, Mrs. Charles B. Judd had lived in the home. This was said to have been a prestigious home in its time, so it was probably very similar to all of the historic Victorian homes in major downtown areas. And like so many of those homes, it eventually became a boarding house that became run down over time. A man named Warren Rowland had married a woman named Vashti in 1907 and they moved from Detroit to Grand Rapids. This had been against her parent's wishes - the marriage that is. The couple rented the former Judd White House. While things were good in the beginning, within a couple years, the couple was often fighting and unhappy. Both had a problem with alcohol, which made matters worse. Warren had gotten a job working for the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad as a brakeman. One day, there was an accident on the rail line and somehow Warren's foot was run over by a box car and his lower leg had to be removed. After surgery, he was given a prostethic wooden leg. Adding this disability into an already volatile relationship wasn't a good thing. Warren was often angry and resentful and he started getting jealous that Vashti was seeing other men. Vashti's sister had witnessed Warren's outbursts and she had a long-held fear that he would murder her sister. And she had good reason to think that because there were several incidents of violence that were recorded.

On May 12, 1909, both the Rowlands were brought to police headquarters after Warren knocked Vashti to her knees and kicked her violently on a public street. No charges were filed. Vashti had had enough and she told Warren that she wanted a divorce and the couple separated with both of them leaving the Judd White House. On June 10th, after Warren moved out of the Judd White House, Vashti called police saying an intruder was under her bed. Upon arrival, they found Warren hiding there. Since it was still technically his home, no trespassing charges were filed.  During June 17th and June 18th, Warren and Vashti both filed for divorce. The following day, Vashti's brother, Lewis, witnessed Warren chasing his sister up an alley on North Division with a straight razor. He had testified that he was yelling, if you don't shut up, I'll cut your throat. And once he caught her, he choked her until her brother actually intervened. And they had both been drinking at the time. 

That brings us to the actual murder-suicide that took place on June 26th, 1909. Around noon, Warren had called his attorney and basically said that he and Vashti had decided to reconcile. Around five o'clock, Vashti was seen driving alone. She told her brother that she was mad at Warren because he was drinking at the saloon. Two hours later, Vashti and Warren picked up Lewis and they all decided to go for a horse and buggy ride. They ended up returning the buggy around midnight. Lewis headed home, Vashti left with Warren, and nobody knows exactly what happened to them after that. It would take approximately two weeks for the deaths to be discovered. Lewis had actually already contacted the police to file the missing person complaint because he couldn't find his sister anywhere.

Nobody thought to look in the house because they had moved out two weeks prior. But a neighbor ended up calling the gas company because she was smelling something horrid coming from the house. The scent definitely had a gas smell to it, but there was an odor on top of the gas fumes that was very foul. The gas company entered the house and they ended up finding two blackened bodies. They were charred beyond recognition, upstairs in the bedroom. It was said that if it hadn't been for the wooden leg and a couple of papers that were actually in Warren's pants, that they wouldn't have even been able to identify him. The bodies were just that bad. The gas fumes in the house were so bad, that the bot flies and the maggots that are normally on decomposing bodies were actually dead. They were suffocated from the gas. I mean, you can imagine the level of fumes in this place. Both bodies were laying on the bed. Vashti was fully clothed except for her shoes. Warren was just laying backwards across her as if he had fallen backwards on the edge of the bed. The gas fixtures were torn off the wall.

There was blood on several pieces of clothing. Prior to the autopsy, the coroner had speculated to a reporter that he thought Warren had used his wooden leg to beat Vashti to death. No other weapon was found. When the bodies were brought to the coroner, which was about two blocks down the autopsies had to be set up in the back alley behind the building because the fumes would've overcome the coroner. So there were actually thousands of people downtown in this alley watching these two be dissected. This was the same alley that Warren had chased Vashti through with a razor. 

The autopsy revealed a small bruise on Vashti's head, which was probably put there by the wooden leg. The leg had been used to knock her out, but it hadn't killed her. She died from asphyxiation, as did Warren. Warren had slit his throat after ripping the gas fixtures from the wall, which is where all the blood came from. But the cut wasn't deep enough to kill him. And a really weird twist to this story is that Warren's father and stepmother both died in the same manner. So apparently it runs in the family on that one. But there were some who believed that this was a suicide pact. The Saginaw News reported that the police thought that was a possibility. The Grand Rapids Herald had said that whether it was a murder or suicide had never been solved. If you actually look up Vashti's death certificate, it says right on it, don't know whether homicide or suicide. You know, it's like they just couldn't figure out exactly because the bodies were so bad.

Vashti's mom came to Grand Rapids and took her daughter's body home to Detroit. I want to share this from The Grand Rapids Press July 12, 1909.

As far as the haunting goes, for years after the tragedy, the Judd White House was known as being haunted. People walking outside of it would hear the screams of a woman and even the sound of a wooden leg beating against something. An article from the Grand Rapids Herald in 1923 had the title "Mansion Haunted by Ghosts After Tragedy to be Razed." And it was demolished in 1923 to make room for the current AT&T Building. In the article, a historian in Grand Rapids said his family would never let him go near the house because they had seen orbs flying through the yard. He had talked about how he was riding one roller skate down the hill and he veered towards the house and it scared him. One lady in the article had talked about how she was a prominent woman in Grand Rapids and so she didn't want to have her name known because she didn't want people to think she was crazy. But she had talked about how she was riding a buggy past the house and that she looked up at the windows and she saw Vashti, who she had known when she was alive, standing in the top window, scratching at the window panes, looking like she was trying to get out. 

A year or two after the bodies were found, a man moved his items into the home. This is where it gets a little weird. He unloaded most of his furniture and left to go get the rest of his stuff. When he got back to the house, he had actually found that the home had caught fire and most of his belongings were in flames. He didn't move in, obviously. And the article also mentions that there was only one other person who lived in what was the death room after the event. And this person ended up dying 13 days after moving in. They said that his body was placed in a coffin in the front room of the house before the services. An unexpected puff of air blew the curtains into a nearby candle, igniting a blaze. As they blew back, they passed over the coffin, setting its interior into a mass of blue flames. So the fire was extinguished, but not until the body was burned to a crisp. So he was cremated.

A new building on the site didn't stop the hauntings. Employees claim to get prank calls that they blame on the ghosts. They say that there's an apparition of a woman on the fifth floor and the apparition of a man has been seen on the second floor. It said that they're both dressed in the early 1900s style. The woman is described as having very dark features and that is how Vashti appears in pictures, with dark hair and eyes.
The woman's hair is up in a bun as well and the picture of Vashti in papers shows her wearing her hair that way.