I wanted to test this out, so just as the sun was setting for the evening, I climbed the stairs and sat at the top of the hill. Allen and Jerry were off in another corner of the cemetery, quietly discussing different headstones and markers. I hadn’t felt anything odd since we arrived, so I saw no problem with sitting by myself as the sun slowly disappeared.
I turned my digital recorder on, but within seconds, it turned itself off. I checked the batteries, and they were not drained. They had just been replaced an hour or so earlier. Not thinking much of it, I switched the recorder on again. Ten or fifteen seconds passed and off it went again. The power to the recorder was not going to stay on. I abandoned the idea of recording any audio, and just sat there in silence.
Nothing out of the ordinary was happening—that is, until Allen and Jerry came into view walking toward the steps. A short, shrill sound quickly came and went. I put my hand out to signal to Allen and Jerry to stop where they were and not to come any closer. I slowly reached for the recorder sitting next to me on the ground, and tried turning it on again. It still refused to work. Jerry took a few photographs of me on the steps, but he saw nothing out of the ordinary in them.
Several minutes passed with the three of us being still as it got darker and darker by the second. I locked eyes with Allen as soon as I began hearing something again. This time, it was unmistakable. Someone was crying, and they sounded awfully close to me. I couldn’t tell if it was a woman or a child, as they can often sound very similar, but I knew without a doubt that I was not hearing an animal or something in the distance I could have mistaken for a human cry. My heart sank, but I did not move. A soft sobbing seemed to come closer and closer to me. It was only a matter of sixty seconds or so, and all was silent again.
I waited for a moment or two, and slowly got up to walk back down the stairs to where Allen and Jerry were standing.
“You heard that, right?” I asked them.
“Yeah, we heard it all right. It sounded like it was closer to you than it was to us,” said Allen.
“Was it a child, do you think?” asked Jerry.
“I don’t know,” I answered. “Whoever or whatever it was made my heart hurt with that cry, though. It sounded so mournful.”
Allen and Jerry wanted to see if the incident would repeat itself if I stayed near the bottom of the stairs as they sat at the top of them. I sat on the ground next to the springhouse and the two of them sat where I had just been. None of us spoke and we kept as still as we could. About fifteen minutes passed by uneventfully. Suddenly, I felt as though someone was walking toward me and I instinctively looked to my right to see who it was. No one was there, but a quiet voice clearly said, “Hello.” I quickly sat up straight and looked around. Allen and Jerry were looking right at me as I pointed to my right, signaling to them that something was there. Allen shrugged his shoulders. He hadn’t heard the voice saying hello, and neither had Jerry.
They stood up and descended the steps. I sat still.
“What happened?” asked Allen.
“Someone said hello to me,” I said.
“Did you hear anything else?” asked Jerry.
“No. Just hello, but it was as if someone were standing within a foot of me,” I replied.
I handed the digital recorder to Allen and asked him to take a look at it because it seemed to be malfunctioning. He turned it on and hit record.
“Seems to be working fine now,” he said.
“Of course it is working now!” I replied. “Just after I really needed it to work!”
Stairs leading to nowhere at Scottsville Cemetery (Jerry Bowers)
The daylight would be completely gone at any moment, so we decided it was time to head home. We did not have permission to be on the grounds after dark.
We passed the monument with the infamous moving angel and I waved goodbye.
“Next time angel … it’s your turn.”
Spotlight on Ghosts: Stampede Mesa
Cattle ranchers once considered this hilltop in Crosby, Texas, which overlooks the White River, an ideal place to rest and feed their herds as they drove them across the plains. What is known today as Stampede Mesa provided a good source of water and a useful view of the surrounding area to warn the men of any approaching trouble. The men and their animals could rest and refuel before continuing on with their journey.
In the fall of 1889, a trail boss reportedly ordered his men to drive his cattle to the mesa. In so doing, they unknowingly cut through a local farmer’s land, inadvertently acquiring a few of his animals along with their own. When the farmer realized what had happened, he rode up to the mesa and demanded the immediate return of his cattle, which he was granted. The farmer began to round up his animals, but he also attempted to steal a few belonging to the herd on the mesa. An argument ensued. The overworked and exhausted cowboys demanded the farmer to return to his land empty-handed and revisit the mesa the next morning to resolve the issue.
The farmer did return, but long before the sun rose the next morning. In the middle of the night, the cattle on the mesa began to stampede and the cowboys watching over them tried to round them up as they headed toward the steepest ledge. Several head of cattle were lost, driven over the edge to their deaths. Witnesses accused the bitter farmer of returning in the night to force the cattle off the cliff.
Infuriated by the loss of so many animals, the trail boss believed he had the right to exact his own version of justice. His men forced the farmer back to the mesa, bound and blindfolded. He was placed on his likewise blindfolded horse and driven off the mesa just as the helpless cattle had been the night before. No one was dispatched to fetch and bury the farmer. He was left to lie with the animals he was accused of killing in the st mpede.
Ever since that fateful day, legend has it that the doomed farmer is still often seen bound to his horse headed for the cliff. Cattlemen became afraid to rest their herds at Stampede Mesa, as it was rumored that the angry farmer was still seeking justice and would drive their cattle to the same fate as those before them. Campers and travelers staying in the area have often been startled awake in the middle of the night by the sound of a massive stampede of animals that simply are not there.
CHAPTER 26
Spaghetti Warehouse HOUSTON
Spaghetti Warehouse exterior (Pete Haviland)
IT HAS BEEN NEARLY A DECADE since I made my first visit to Texas. I was overwhelmed with the vastness of the state, the pride of those who called it home, and of course, food like I had never tasted before in my life. On that very first trip out, I learned that Texas would never let me down when it came to finding something new and fun to experience. I distinctly remember stopping to have dinner at the Spaghetti Warehouse in Dallas, and I loved it. Now that I am a Texas resident, you’d think the nostalgia would have long worn off—but it hasn’t.
My husband Allen, a Texas native, has lived in almost every area of the state at one time or another, and when I began looking for haunted places to research for the book, he suggested I look into the Spaghetti Warehouse in Houston.
“I thought that was in Dallas,” I said.
“They have a few of them in Texas, but I know the one in Houston is supposedly haunted,” he replied.
I looked it up, and he was right. The Spaghetti Warehouse in Houston did indeed have several ghost stories attached to it, but as with any other place, I wasn’t going to be convinced until I could visit and get a feel for it myself. Allen and I made arrangements to visit some of his family in the Houston area and put the restaurant on our list of places to stop for a bite.
The building that now houses the restaurant was originally constructed in the early 1900s as the Desel-Boettcher Warehouse, and it has served many functions over the past century. Produce, storage, cotton, and pharmaceutical businesses came and went until the building was purchased in the 1970s and renovated into the Spaghetti Warehouse restaurant. Some say that early on in the building’s history, several workers suffered unfortunate accidents that
caused their deaths.
One story is particularly heartbreaking. A woman whose husband worked at the warehouse was cooking dinner and waiting for him to return home from work. He did not arrive at his usual time, and she started to worry. It was not like him to be late. A short time passed, and as she was pacing the house, she heard the front door open and the sound of footsteps coming down the hall. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a figure quickly pass by. Thinking her husband had finally returned home, she called out to him but he did not respond. After searching the home frantically for her husband in vain, the woman ran to the warehouse only to find that her husband had fallen to his death in the warehouse’s elevator shaft. As the story goes, the widow was found dead in her home on the first-year anniversary of her husband’s death. No cause of death was ever determined, but most believed she had died of a broken heart.
For years, restaurant employees have reported seeing the apparition of a woman in a long white dress on the second floor, and speculate that it is the ghost of the widow haunting the building that claimed her husband’s life.
Did customers see the widow’s apparition too? I didn’t know, but I was hoping I would when we arrived at the restaurant for dinner one evening. The restaurant is gorgeously decorated with antiques, including a chandelier from New York’s Penn Station, a trolley car, and a hand-carved staircase removed from one of England’s castles. It didn’t look at all like the Spaghetti Warehouse I had visited in Dallas, but it had the same warmth and energy about it. I was more interested in the décor than the meal, but I ended up enjoying both a great deal. The restaurant was packed, and I didn’t have a whole lot of time to peruse as much of it as I would have liked, but it fascinated me enough to try and dig a little deeper into its haunted history.
As soon as we made it back home, I contacted Pete Haviland of Lone Star Spirits in Houston and asked him if he’d had any knowledge or experience with the Spaghetti Warehouse.
“Yes, my team and I have investigated the restaurant many times,” Pete replied. “Every time I do any work there, I get pulled aside and told the latest experience. The stories are fascinating.”
“What sorts of things have happened in the restaurant?” I asked.
“Over the years, many people have reported seeing the apparition of a woman in white on the upstairs floor,” he began. “Dishwashers have even reported looking up through the window in front of their work station and seeing a white, sullen face of a woman looking directly at them.”
Pete went on to tell me that several instances of activity seemed to center around the kitchen area.
“During one renovation, a carpenter was working near the kitchen. When he began working, the dining room had been neat and tidy—nothing out of the ordinary. Well, when he took a moment to look around again, the dining room chairs had somehow been stacked three high! He quit working in the restaurant after that, and never came back.
“Waiters and waitresses have often complained of being tripped as they walked out of the kitchen to serve food to their customers.”
On one occasion, arguing was heard coming from the kitchen. Plates were being broken and a knife had even been thrown, all without any visible explanation.
“What have you personally experienced during your investigations?” I asked.
“Directly above the entrance to the building, there is a small dining room that sits where the old elevator used to be. I have personally witnessed the apparition of a little girl in that room, as did others who were with me during an overnight investigation. We heard the sounds of children laughing and a male-sounding moan.”
I asked Pete why he thought the spirits of children might be haunting the restaurant.
“There is an urn cabinet upstairs that is rumored to have once housed the cremated remains of orphaned children,” Pete explained. “A medium I worked with told me that she believed the spirit of the little girl I had seen was attached to that cabinet, as she had somehow gotten herself locked in the bottom portion of it during a game of hide-and-seek and had suffocated. Several people have also said they’ve heard children crying in the vicinity of the cabinet.
“Investigator Tom Kennedy saw the apparition of a man in a wool suit in the small dining room above the entrance just seconds before a medium described the spirit to a separate room of people. Tom hadn’t been with them, but both he and the medium reported identical descriptions of the man.”
“Has anything strange happened anywhere else in the building?” I asked.
“Team member Rebecca Draper conducted an experiment in the basement where she placed a small rubber ball in front of her on the floor, and asked that someone move it so she could see,” said Pete. “The ball did indeed move, and a rather significant distance. Unexplained footsteps were heard in the basement as well, and we also received reports that someone saw what they described as a young slave cowering in one of the corners down there.”
“I have heard that the staircase in the restaurant is active as well,” I said.
“Yes. People have reported seeing a man tumbling down the stairs. Two separate mediums I have spoken with tell me that they see a man with heart issues, possibly causing a heart attack and a fall down the stairs.”
I asked Pete his opinion of why he thought the Spaghetti Warehouse was haunted.
“I think there are many factors to it,” he answered. “The building has been home to many businesses over the years, and there are many stories about people having been involved in fatal accidents. The restaurant is also filled with antiques that could have brought with them their own residual energy. Those sorts of things can really add up and cause people to experience phenomena on a rather consistent basis.”
Pete and his team at Lone Star Spirits continue their ongoing research of the historical warehouse building. They hope to determine whether or not the phenomena experienced there are genuine manifestations of an intelligent and interactive spirit (or spirits), purely residual energy, or perhaps even poltergeist activity.
Researchers have long been examining the possibility that poltergeists are the manifestations of the human mind’s ability to project outward into the physical environment, causing chaotic movements of objects and often mirroring things we believe to be paranormal in nature.
Allen and I truly enjoyed the unique dining experience of the Spaghetti Warehouse and the many stories of the ghosts that call it home. I didn’t want to leave, and felt sad that I lived so far away that I couldn’t just pop in from time to time.
If there are ghosts haunting the restaurant who are content and at peace to be there, I hope I have the opportunity to see and interact with them on a future visit. It is my sincere hope that the forlorn “lady in white” will someday be able to let go of the past that binds her to the old warehouse building and reunite with the spirit of her beloved husband.
Lone Star Spirits and The Paranormal Source, Inc. plan a collaborative effort to investigate the restaurant in the coming months. I hope we will be able to shed a bit more light on that which tends to stay hidden in the dark.
CHAPTER 27
USS Texas LA PORTE
USS Texas exterior (Jerry Bowers)
WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL, one of my all-time favorite board games was Battleship. Naturally, I was usually the one who lost, but I still had a great time trying to sink my opponent’s fleet. If you think about it, it’s strange that a popular board game for children was inspired by vessels of destruction. I suppose G.I. Joe or the myriad of other aggressive games and toys available to youngsters today aren’t much better. At any rate, I have fond memories of the game, and have always thought that an actual real-life battleship would be one of the coolest things to see.
The battleship USS Texas rests today at the San Jacinto Battleground a short distance from Houston. The ship spent thirty-four years and six weeks as a U.S. Navy vessel, commissioned in 1914 and decommissioned in 1948. The “Mighty T” sailed 728,000 miles during its service, and it is the only remaining Unit
ed States Navy battleship that fought in both World Wars. It has undergone quite a few renovations, but much of the ship remains as it was when it first launched into open waters.
For years, visitors to the ship have reported seeing the apparition of a red-headed sailor in his dress whites smiling at them as they pass by. He is sometimes seen standing near a ladder or walking along the ship’s deck, and has earned the appropriate nickname of “Red.” Those who have tried to approach the sailor and say hello are often disappointed at his lack of a response shortly before he turns a corner and disappears. He never speaks, but the smile on his face would indicate that he is happy being aboard the ship.
I became a Navy wife shortly after I turned twenty, and my first husband was often deployed on several different types of Navy ships during his time in the military. My first opportunity to walk onboard a Navy vessel was on a different type of ship called a frigate. In the past decade, I have been on all types of Navy vessels, and they are not exactly the homiest of environments. Our men and women in the service spend large amounts of time on these ships (some of them likened to floating cities), and none of them were built for comfort.
There’s no telling the exact number of sailors who lived and worked on the Texas. Although living on these ships and spending so much time away from family and friends is difficult, sailors are incredibly dedicated people and it is not surprising to me that their spirits are believed to walk the narrow hallways of this battleship to this day.
When I first compiled my list of locations for my haunted road trip, my husband was excited to see the battleship Texas listed as a destination.
“I haven’t been to the ship since I was a kid, but I’d made many trips out there when my family was living in Houston,” said Allen.
April Slaughter Page 15
