The first members of John Markway’s family who noticed something wrong were the twins.
John and his three sons, the twins 17, the youngest 12, moved into the house in Bothell, Washington, with John’s new wife, but not until the twins started running track in high school, did any of them notice the darkness in the neighborhood.
“They were putting in practice time running the roads around our house and they soon discovered that this area has some eccentricities,” John said. “The area of strangeness seems to parallel a road, now called a street, that runs not far from our house. It appears to be a typical ’20s-era farm road that is fairly common in these parts.”
When John’s family moved into the area, they heard stories about that road, stories of a local “peeper, which was creepy, but probably just kids right?” John said.
It wasn’t just kids. Kids wouldn’t go anywhere near that road.
“An area on the road perhaps two short blocks from our home was simply unpleasant,” John said. “Everyone avoided that stretch of road except for car use. Hell, blackberry vines were out in the road, and kids used a detour through a field to bypass the place.”
When the twins took that road on their evening running route, they sensed a phantom jogger ran behind them.
“After consulting with other neighborhood runners they discovered that that area was avoided for that reason,” John said. People, including the twins, “would hear footsteps mimicking theirs behind them, breath upon their shoulders, hear breathing and upon a couple of occasions had things thrown at them.”
Although the twins didn’t believe in the paranormal, they had no explanation for what was happening to them on that road.
“What really got my attention was the incident that ended their nighttime running in that direction,” John said. “Number Two twin encountered a green fog in a sort of cloud about a block away. He said that it glowed.”
A few nights later, John decided to go out in the dark and look at this road himself.
“It was probably late September to October. There was a full moon, about 42 degrees and absolutely clear, something not common here,” he said.
John’s youngest son, 12, accompanied him.
“We got up onto the road and got our bearings,” he said. “No green fog; life is disappointment.”
But John wasn’t to be disappointed.
Father and son walked down the lonely road toward the spot John’s older son encountered the fog. A narrow shoulder separated the road from the field and thick trees on the left.
“I had a flashlight but do not remember using it,” he said. “I looked in back of us for a second, and saw a shadow rapidly approaching us from the south.”
The shadow seemed to be caused by something in the sky. John first thought it may be an airplane, cloud, or some kind of balloon, but he saw nothing that could have caused the shadow.
“This was no small shadow, this literally encompassed everything,” he said.
Immediately the dim grayness of the night turned noticeably darker – but the moon and stars still shone through a cloudless sky.
“We continued to walk, making for a streetlight that seemed to mark the end of the affected area,” John said. “When we got there, a crossroads, there was what looked like a wolf grinning at us under the light pole. Too weird. We took another way home.”
Neither John nor his son encountered anything else strange on their walk home, but after that night, everyone in the house began to have strange experiences.
“Other phenomena afflict our lives,” John said. “At times we go through 20 light bulbs a month, and sometimes we know ahead of times that they will blow. We have repeated phantom visitors – the sound of someone coming in the front door, footsteps, phantom dog scratches, and things falling from walls.”
The darkness John and his youngest son experienced outside may have followed them inside.
“My wife and I both feel that the house is too dark,” he said. “And sometimes feel as if we are being drained. We both have medical retirements and we spend a lot of time here. We were ready to move when the housing bubble popped. We have a lot of equity but no one is buying, or we'd be long gone. Something is wrong with this place.”
Copyright 2011 by Jason Offutt
Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason’s newest book on the paranormal, “Paranormal Missouri: Show Me Your Monsters,” is available at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
The Haunting of Hillhaven
Hillhaven Nursing Home in Marceline, Mo., sits vacant, a haven for vandals and skittering rodents.
However, in the dark of night, this three-story, crumbling brick edifice is not quiet.
The building, constructed in 1923, has housed the Putman Memorial Hospital, St. Francis Hospital, Hillhaven, and finally Meadowbrook Nursing Home.
Ryan Straub, founder of the mid-Missouri paranormal research group Tir Firnath, is familiar with the building – his mother, Patty Cruzan, worked there for 10 years.
“My mom says death comes in threes,” he said. “The reason she says that is because of this place.”
At least 10 people died in the building while she worked there.
Dust and plaster coat parts of the floor that aren’t covered with broken furniture and boxes of books and other forgotten refuse. Crossword puzzle pages dot the ground along with puzzle pieces nursing home residents once used to build landscapes. In one room, former St. Louis Cardinal Mark McGwire’s smiling face perpetually stares from the Oct. 5, 1998 issue of “Sports Illustrated.”
When Meadowbrook closed, the owners left everything. Pots and pans sit on rusting stoves that will never again be lit to cook. Desks and chairs huddle in offices. Beds and equipment – still recognizable after all the vandalism – lay broken in patient rooms.
Cruzan worked at Hillhaven from September 1988 until August 1992 when Meadowbrook bought the building. Meadowbrook closed in 1995 and the company hired her to “maintain the grounds and handle inventory,” she said.
She worked there alone until 1998.
One night she received a call at home about the empty building – a light was on. She asked her then-teenage son to drive to the building and turn off the light. He did, but discovered he wasn’t alone.
In a room on the second floor, Straub saw an old woman sitting in a chair looking out the window. As he watched her, the woman turned her head toward him.
“I was a witness to an entity that was in the shape of an elderly woman who, when she recognized my presence, turned her head 180 degrees and smiled,” he said. “Her smile literally went from ear to ear.”
Straub quickly left, but he’s been back. As a paranormal researcher, he has investigated the building a dozen times and always encounters something strange.
“There have been times I’ve been down here and all the doors in the hall were open and when I got to this door,” he said, placing his hand on a door at the end of the second-floor hall, “they’d all shut.”
Cruzan was with her son one day when this happened.
“We went through that building, the doors were open,” she said. “We went back, they were closed.”
She also knows of things she can’t explain that have happened in the building.
During its years as a nursing home, Cruzan said third-shift workers occasionally reported hearing people walking upstairs, but when they checked, every resident was asleep.
One worker said tasks she’d turned away from would be complete when she returned to them. And Cruzan experienced something herself while she was there alone.
“At one time I thought I heard something down in the kitchen,” she said. “Something was going on down there, like somebody was there. I didn’t find anything. I didn’t stay long.”
People have reported being unable to breathe in certain parts of the building and have heard footsteps running down the second floor hallway. Many people who worked there said they never felt alone. Straub said his mother was familiar with the feeling.
“She always felt like there was somebody here,” he said.
But Straub knows the strangeness of the building isn’t because of people. It might be the building itself.
“At night, it literally sounds like the building was growling,” he said. “It feels like the whole building was growling. It almost feels like the building wants to mess with you a little bit.”
Copyright 2011 by Jason Offutt
Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason’s newest book on the paranormal, “Paranormal Missouri: Show Me Your Monsters,” is available at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.
However, in the dark of night, this three-story, crumbling brick edifice is not quiet.
The building, constructed in 1923, has housed the Putman Memorial Hospital, St. Francis Hospital, Hillhaven, and finally Meadowbrook Nursing Home.
Ryan Straub, founder of the mid-Missouri paranormal research group Tir Firnath, is familiar with the building – his mother, Patty Cruzan, worked there for 10 years.
“My mom says death comes in threes,” he said. “The reason she says that is because of this place.”
At least 10 people died in the building while she worked there.
Dust and plaster coat parts of the floor that aren’t covered with broken furniture and boxes of books and other forgotten refuse. Crossword puzzle pages dot the ground along with puzzle pieces nursing home residents once used to build landscapes. In one room, former St. Louis Cardinal Mark McGwire’s smiling face perpetually stares from the Oct. 5, 1998 issue of “Sports Illustrated.”
When Meadowbrook closed, the owners left everything. Pots and pans sit on rusting stoves that will never again be lit to cook. Desks and chairs huddle in offices. Beds and equipment – still recognizable after all the vandalism – lay broken in patient rooms.
Cruzan worked at Hillhaven from September 1988 until August 1992 when Meadowbrook bought the building. Meadowbrook closed in 1995 and the company hired her to “maintain the grounds and handle inventory,” she said.
She worked there alone until 1998.
One night she received a call at home about the empty building – a light was on. She asked her then-teenage son to drive to the building and turn off the light. He did, but discovered he wasn’t alone.
In a room on the second floor, Straub saw an old woman sitting in a chair looking out the window. As he watched her, the woman turned her head toward him.
“I was a witness to an entity that was in the shape of an elderly woman who, when she recognized my presence, turned her head 180 degrees and smiled,” he said. “Her smile literally went from ear to ear.”
Straub quickly left, but he’s been back. As a paranormal researcher, he has investigated the building a dozen times and always encounters something strange.
“There have been times I’ve been down here and all the doors in the hall were open and when I got to this door,” he said, placing his hand on a door at the end of the second-floor hall, “they’d all shut.”
Cruzan was with her son one day when this happened.
“We went through that building, the doors were open,” she said. “We went back, they were closed.”
She also knows of things she can’t explain that have happened in the building.
During its years as a nursing home, Cruzan said third-shift workers occasionally reported hearing people walking upstairs, but when they checked, every resident was asleep.
One worker said tasks she’d turned away from would be complete when she returned to them. And Cruzan experienced something herself while she was there alone.
“At one time I thought I heard something down in the kitchen,” she said. “Something was going on down there, like somebody was there. I didn’t find anything. I didn’t stay long.”
People have reported being unable to breathe in certain parts of the building and have heard footsteps running down the second floor hallway. Many people who worked there said they never felt alone. Straub said his mother was familiar with the feeling.
“She always felt like there was somebody here,” he said.
But Straub knows the strangeness of the building isn’t because of people. It might be the building itself.
“At night, it literally sounds like the building was growling,” he said. “It feels like the whole building was growling. It almost feels like the building wants to mess with you a little bit.”
Copyright 2011 by Jason Offutt
Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason’s newest book on the paranormal, “Paranormal Missouri: Show Me Your Monsters,” is available at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.
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