The supervisor said a man named Ben Trimble had been old man Proctor’s handyman for several years. Off on Sundays, the deputies found him at home in Thibodaux. Twenty-five-year-old Ben lived with his common-law wife in a dilapidated shotgun house near the bayou. He said they had been at church all morning. Shocked to learn about the murders, he told police he always knew Noah “wasn’t right in the head” and that something awful might happen. And no, the family didn’t fight or bicker. There wasn’t any love either — just coexistence in that big old house.
He added that the dead Proctor girl, May Ellen, attended Catholic school in town, but Noah hadn’t gone since first grade. His teacher claimed he couldn’t learn anything, and Noah’s father and mother gave up on him. The caretaker said Noah just sat on the stairs every day, lost in another world. His mother would go get him at mealtimes, and he even pissed in his pants sometimes when she forgot to tell him to use the restroom. Trimble described him as a boy whose mind was a locked room with no key.
Even without witnesses, what happened seemed indisputable. The demented boy killed his parents, hid the murder weapon somewhere, and refused to tell investigators what happened. It was a Sunday and they had no place to take Noah for the night except to the parish jail. Given his age and apparent mental incapacity, they stuck him in a holding cell away from the other prisoners. The next day a judge would determine his future.
Children and Family Services professionals evaluated Noah and determined he couldn’t stand trial either as a juvenile or an adult. His mental acuity was above average — a surprise to those who considered him impaired — so he either chose never to speak or he couldn’t. He expressed no emotion, and his demeanor never changed. He initiated nothing on his own; even changing clothes happened only when a worker handed him fresh clothing and told him to put them on. The doctors said he couldn’t defend himself. That and a lack of witnesses meant no one was ever charged with the brutal murders of his family.
They sent Noah to an institution for further evaluation, and there he remained for many years. At first the doctors spent a lot of time with the mute boy, but at some point they gave up. Regardless of what therapies or processes they tried, nothing ever changed, and after a few years he became lost in the system. With no one to champion his cause, he sat in a locked room. Every day an orderly took him outside for an hour in the sun, to his meals and the recreation room. Noah would stare at the television, seeing it but not really watching.
Julien’s head jerked up as the bell rang. The time had flown as he listened once again to the fascinating account of Proctor Hall, but now class was over.
“We’ll continue this saga on Wednesday,” he said to a rare chorus of groans. Usually students left quickly, but today they wanted more.
The kids begged Marisol to continue — which was a big deal since no one liked her. She didn’t have another class after this, and the students asked Julien if she could continue. In the end, even those with back-to-back classes skipped the next one, which pleased Marisol.
She continued, “I found several articles about what happened to Noah. It surprised me that one of the most thorough and entertaining appeared in a 1991 issue of Reader’s Digest.”
Julien nodded; he’d also found that one interesting.
In 1989, twenty-six years after the deaths of his family members, Noah was deemed fit to return to society. There had been no miraculous recovery. They decided to release him based on two things. One was the forty thousand dollars a year it cost to keep him in a state facility. And also he never created a problem, never exhibiting violent or disruptive tendencies. Quite the opposite — he never spoke or did anything proactive. A psychiatrist signed his release papers, saying Noah Proctor posed no danger to society or himself. He wasn’t “cured,” but he was free.
Although the facility was in essence abandoning him, his doctor knew this patient must have someplace to go and people to care for him. A typical forty-year-old patient would walk out the door and re-enter the world, but this man was different. He would require help for the rest of his life.
The basic problem was that he had no one to go home to. He had murdered and decapitated his only relatives. The director of the hospital called the Lafourche Parish sheriff for advice, and the sheriff went to Proctor Hall to see if anyone was still there. He found the caretaker and his wife, Ben and Agnes Trimble, living in the house.
Trimble told the sheriff he’d moved in after the Proctors died. With no family to take care of the property, he’d stayed on to keep the house up. The plantation was another story. With no one to pay the workers, the sugarcane operation shut down, and the workers moved on. The roof on the huge old sugar mill collapsed, leaving four tall brick walls and a lot of ruined machinery. Many wooden outbuildings still stood — the barns, barracks, offices, blacksmith shop and so forth — but they were left to the elements. By leasing the land to the sugar cooperative, Ben had sufficient income to pay for upkeep.
The sheriff noticed the place needed fixing up, but Trimble at least tried to keep his old employer’s house and land from ruin. Technically the couple were squatters, but the sheriff saw no reason to challenge their living at Proctor Hall.
To the lawman’s surprise, Ben said they could bring Noah back to Proctor Hall. He and Agnes would care for the man. It was proper that he live here despite his horrible crimes, Ben said. It was his home, even though he’d been gone for more than half his life.
“The doctors say he’s no danger to himself or others,” the sheriff advised, and Ben said it was nothing to worry about. He wasn’t afraid of Noah. Hell, he’d known him since he was a kid. He did some awful things a long time ago, but they wouldn’t have a problem with him.
You two are as strange as Noah, the sheriff thought, but he let it go. Thanks to Ben Trimble, Noah had a place to come home to. Done deal and potential problem solved. Four days later, a deputy brought Noah back to Proctor Hall.
According to the Reader’s Digest article, that was when all the strange things started. Nocturnal things that fishermen on Bayou Lafourche saw in the wee hours. Ghostly specters floated on the porches and the grounds, eerie lights flickered in the upstairs windows, and unearthly shrieks scared even the bravest of them.
Then there were the legends — the folktales about uncanny things at the old house. On the anniversary night of the massacre, daring teens and even adults crept up to the old house and witnessed horrifying things that scared them out of their wits.
“I heard moans and groans coming from somewhere inside,” one said. “I peeked in a window. It was the sitting room where they died. Fresh blood was dripping from the mantel, and a bloody machete lay on the floor by the couch. I sensed something behind me — a dark thing that floated in the air — and I ran for my life. I’ll never go back there again as long as I live. Those who do never come out.”
Those unproven stories proliferated among the residents of Lafourche Parish. They were ghost stories that added to the mystery and eeriness of the house, and they kept most people away from Proctor Hall.
Marisol said, “We know some things about the house, but not everything. So many questions remain unanswered. How did Noah kill one of them after another without somebody resisting and stopping him? What was the murder weapon? The police said maybe it was an ax, but they never found it. There’s no record of what happened to the bodies of the victims — or their heads. There were no funerals, so where are the Proctors buried?”
That was the end of her report on the massacre, and she switched to the 1998 disappearance of Marguey Slattery. It was yet another unsolved mystery involving Proctor Hall. By then Noah was back home, so was Marguey another of his victims?
The professor said, “We’re out of time, so let’s leave Marguey for now. You did a great job uncovering a fascinating story, Marisol. Thanks to the rest of you for staying to hear it. See you Wednesday.”
CHAPTER FIVE
One evening last winter Julien and two other Tulane professors had met
in a Freret Street bar. He asked if either had any haunted house stories for his fall course on Louisiana culture, and someone mentioned the Marguey Slattery disappearance. The tale had garnered local attention, but the man talking was from Thibodaux, and he had heard a lot more than the media reported.
“Everyone knows about the Massacre at Proctor Hall, where the kid cut the heads off his entire family back in the sixties, but Marguey’s a different story.”
Julien said, “She disappeared somewhere down on Bayou Lafourche twenty years or so ago, as I recall.”
“She disappeared at Proctor Hall.”
Keen to learn his friend’s story, Julien listened to a mixture of fact, gossip and theories. It went like this — fourteen-year-old Marguey Slattery was in her pirogue on Bayou Lafourche one afternoon. When a thundershower popped up, she pulled under a tree along the bank to wait it out. Hours later when she hadn’t returned home, her father, Emile, went looking for her in a bass boat.
“Her dad said he shuddered when he found the pirogue tied up on the bank and looked off in the distance. There stood Proctor Hall.
“Emile Slattery was a friend of my mother’s,” the tale-teller continued. “Plus, the Massacre at Proctor Hall was the biggest crime that ever happened in the parish. People steered clear of the old house, and Marguey’s dad never understood why his daughter picked that place to hunker down. It spooked him to walk to the house, but he was desperate. He hoped to God she ran to the house to get out of the rain, and she got hurt or something. It was far-fetched, but it gave him hope.
“Emile became frantic when he saw her straw hat lying on the porch. He banged on the door, and the caretaker, a man named Ben Trimble, who answered said no girl had come around. Marguey’s father shoved him aside and ran into the entry hall, shouting her name.
“He trembled when he saw Noah Proctor sitting on the stairway a few feet away. ‘Where’s my daughter? What have you done with her?’ he yelled. And of course Noah said nothing. The caretaker grabbed Emile, wrestled him out onto the front porch, and ordered him off the property.
“‘We ain’t seen your daughter and the boy has nothing to do with it,’ he yelled. That’s when Marguey’s father called the sheriff.
“The authorities searched the house, but nothing indicated the girl had ever been there. Naturally the cops suspected Noah, but with no evidence except a straw hat on the porch, they left.
“That was eighteen years ago. Marguey Slattery would be thirty-two now. Her daddy died a few years after her disappearance, some said of a broken heart. He spent the remaining years of his life warning others to stay away from Proctor Hall and telling anyone who’d listen that his daughter’s murderer was Noah Proctor.”
Julien appeared captivated by the story and asked a lot of questions, most of which the man couldn’t answer. He ended his story by saying this was one more unsolved mystery surrounding Proctor Hall.
CHAPTER SIX
The next morning before his first class, Julien went to his office early and searched the web. He wondered what else he could find about the girl’s disappearance.
The man had covered almost everything, but Julien found a little more. First, in cases like this, many perpetrators ended up being family members. The cops interviewed Marguey’s father but filed no charges, so Landry figured they believed him.
The other interesting item was that Noah would have been forty-nine when the girl disappeared, and the authorities didn’t even try to speak with him. Not that it would have mattered, according to tales about the man of no words or emotions.
Once again Noah Proctor and his childhood home became part of a criminal investigation, although there was no proof either played a part in Marguey’s disappearance. Once again there were no clues. Julien imagined how this case frustrated the authorities. They must have thought Noah was involved, but without evidence there was nothing they could do.
In 2018, a reporter visited Proctor Hall to write a “twenty years later” article. He found an abandoned house, tromped around the tall grass and weeds, and walked around the first floor. The doors were hanging off their hinges, windows were broken, and it seemed no one had lived there for some time. Finding the rooms furnished and the beds made, he grew uneasy. It was as if the residents had stepped out for a moment and would be right back. He called the sheriff to report the abandoned house.
People in the area spoke of noises at night and eerie lights moving from window to window on the second floor. Some claimed to have seen the ghosts of Hiram, Susan and May Ellen Proctor roaming the house, looking for their heads. The reporter experienced none of that, but he also admitted he would never set foot in that creepy house again.
As years passed, people forgot about Marguey Slattery. No investigator opened her thin case folder because nothing new ever surfaced.
The story piqued his interest. It had been some time since Julien saw Proctor Hall, and he wondered how the place looked these days. Soon after the semester ended, he drove to Lafourche Parish. Miles of sugarcane fields lined Highway 308, and a few miles south of Thibodaux he passed a stretch of unkempt grass, briars and weeds. A rotting post supported a mailbox that was just one strong breeze away from toppling. On its side in faded black letters was the word “Proctor.” Things had deteriorated since his last visit.
He turned down a rutted one-lane road, and the grass that brushed against his car was as high as cornstalks. A few yards down the lane, a recently installed gate with solid iron posts blocked the road. A sign on the gate read, NO TRESPASSING. PRIVATE PROPERTY. FOR INFORMATION CALL (504) 555-2738.
That was a surprise, and he called the number. A woman with a friendly Southern accent answered, “Louisiana Society for the Paranormal. This is Cate. How may I help you?”
Another surprise. A paranormal society owned the property? He stammered, “Uh, my name’s Julien Girard. Dr. Julien Girard from Tulane. I’m…uh, I’m at a place called Proctor Hall. It’s in Lafourche Parish…”
“I’m familiar with Proctor Hall, Dr. Girard. You say you’re there? Did you get this number from our sign?”
“Yes. I came hoping to see the old house.”
“That’s not possible at the moment, but let me get some information from you and find out what we can do.” She asked for his number and why the house interested him.
“I teach a class on Louisiana culture. Plantation homes, unexplained mysteries, ghost stories — that sort of thing.” He mentioned those topics specifically in hopes he’d pique her interest. After all, she worked for a paranormal society. “By the way, where are you all located?”
Cate replied, “We’re in New Orleans, in the French Quarter. Let me talk with our director and get back in touch with you. I’ll call tomorrow at the latest.”
“May I ask who your director is?” He smiled when she told him Henri Duchamp was president of the society.
“Tell Henri that Julien Girard sends his regards.”
“You know Mr. Duchamp?”
“I’ve met him, although I didn’t realize he headed the paranormal society. I’ve used his name in vain a hundred times in my classes. There’s no one more knowledgeable about supernatural occurrences in Louisiana.”
Cate laughed and agreed, adding, “I’ve only been here a few months, and I haven’t learned who his colleagues are yet. If you have a moment, let me find out if he’s available.”
Henri picked up, greeted Julien warmly, and asked what he was doing out in the boondocks. The professor told him of his interest in the stories surrounding the old plantation.
“I’ve been here before, but not recently. I understand why a paranormal society would be interested in Proctor Hall. Tell me how it came about. Do you own the plantation?”
Duchamp explained that a friend and benefactor of the society bought distressed properties at tax and foreclosure auctions. Proctor Hall was his latest, and Henri was managing the property as he prepared to investigate the legends.
Julien had nothing to lose by asking
to look around, since he’d made the trip.
Henri turned him down. “I’m afraid I can’t allow anyone on the property unsupervised. It’s in disrepair, and potential liability is an issue. I know it’s a wasted trip for you, but I plan to be up there myself on Wednesday. If you’re free, you’re welcome to join us.” Julien jumped at the chance, and after he hung up, he wondered who Henri was bringing with him.
On Wednesday morning the gate stood open. The tall grass and weeds along the lane obscured his view of the house until he emerged onto a recently mowed yard and saw it fifty yards away. He parked next to a Jeep Grand Cherokee and a Channel Nine TV van, got out and walked the perimeter to get a look at the old place.
Proctor Hall had never been a showplace like many antebellum mansions in the Deep South. It was a long, low-slung two-story house with covered porches on the back and bayou sides and was built for function, not charm. The paint had peeled, plywood covered some windows, and part of the back porch had rotted away.
The Proctor Hall Horror Page 2
