There are a huge variety of ghost stories among the people. However, usually people who were aliens from the underworld, as a rule, limit themselves to the most general descriptions of their visions, without details. More often than not, the "identity of the ghost" (that is, who he was during his lifetime) is unknown. And even more often it turns out that the whole creepy story is just fiction or a joke.
However, there are times when people who really existed appear after their death or visit places that were of special importance to them during their lifetime.
William Skito
It was 1864. The end of the American Civil War was approaching. In Newton, Alabama, Minister Bill Skito was assassinated. Political opponents took him to the Choktovotchi River and hanged him without trial or investigation.
It was said that before his secret execution Skito prayed fervently to God to forgive his murderers. When the killers knocked the support out from under the minister's feet, it turned out that the rope was tied to an insufficiently strong branch, it bent, and Bill touched the ground with his toes. Then the killers dug a hole under Skito's feet, and he suffocated.
The place where, according to legend, Skito was killed
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After Skito's death, each of his executioners died a very strange and unusual death. One of them was struck by lightning, another was rumored to be shot, and others were killed while the animals were slaughtered. As for the hole dug under Skito's feet, it was never filled. Even when someone tried to fill it with earth, after a while, it still formed.
It is possible that the townspeople had a hand in this, digging the hole over and over. However, the story of the brutal murder of Bill Skito is considered one of the oldest ghost stories in Alabama.
The Manson murders
Probably the most famous case on our list is the massacre at 10090 Cielo Drive. Sharon Tate, Jay Sibring, his girlfriend, Roman Polanski's friend Wojciech Frykowski, and his girlfriend Abigail Forgers, were killed by members of the Manson family on August 9, 1969. The actress and director's wife, Roman Polanski, was eight months pregnant when she was brutally stabbed to death at home which she and her husband rented. Manson and family members implicated in the murders were arrested and convicted.
After these brutal murders, ghosts began to visit the house and its surroundings. In 1994, the house was demolished and a new house was built in its place. However, the interest of the ghosts in this place still has not dried up.
For example, David Oman, who built a house in 1999 several hundred meters from the scene of the murder, said that the workers heard strange voices and footsteps, but not a living soul was visible nearby.
Oman also claims that one night he was awakened by the gaze of a man who was standing by his bed, pointing in the direction of the murder site. Oman later saw a photograph of Jay Seabring and identified him as the ghost he saw.
Other visitors claimed to have seen a naked woman bleeding to death in the street. Oman's testimonies formed the basis for the screenplay “House at the End of the Street”.
Lisa Poslance
On November 2, 2002, 38-year-old real estate agent Lisa Poslance lingered late Saturday night in her office in Toronto. When she left the office, she was attacked and taken to a utility room.
There, she was handcuffed, raped, and then her throat was cut. The body was found seven hours after the woman was put on the wanted list.
The first suspect was security guard Rui Márquez, who worked in the building and had access to all premises. However, DNA tests showed his innocence.
Meanwhile, during the interrogation, Marquez recalled something strange that happened on the night of the murder. As he was polishing the black table, a ghost appeared in front of him for a few seconds and pointed to this table. He immediately thought of a man named Nelson DeJesus who always wore black.
The police checked DeJesus and found that he had stalked Lisa for several months before the murder. His DNA matched samples taken from Lisa's clothes. He was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.
Ella Maud Cropsey
Ella Maud Cropsey, better known as Nell, was one of nine children in a family that moved from New York to Elizabeth City, North Carolina in 1898.
After the move, 16-year-old Nell began dating the local sheriff's son Jim Wilcox. Three years later, in the fall of 1901, relations began to deteriorate.
On November 20, Watkins went to Cropsey's house and called Nell out on the porch to "talk." After that, she was no longer seen alive. Of course, people immediately suspected Wilcox. He insisted that he knew nothing, but that day he broke off the relationship and left the girl crying on the porch.
While Nell was presumed missing, one female medium offered her services. She said she "saw" Wilcox attack Nell, kill her, and throw her body into a deep well.
However, the words of the "soothsayer" were not confirmed; Nell's body was pulled out of the river 37 days after she went missing. There was a wound on her forehead. This head injury, as well as the psychic's prediction, further confirmed the idea that the killer was Wilcox; despite the lack of sufficient evidence for this version.
Wilcox was arrested and convicted and spent 15 years in prison before he was pardoned. But even after his release, Wilcox's life did not go well. He couldn't find a job and drank too much. In the end he committed suicide.
It is unclear if Nell is a murder victim. She could have committed suicide, an accident could have happened. However, curiously enough, when Nell's body was pulled out of the river, it barely decomposed.
In December, the Cropsey family bought three times their usual ice. Is it possible that it was they who hid the body and covered it with ice?
And another oddity: two people who were in the house on the night of the disappearance of the girl, several years later committed suicide.
Brother Nell drank the acid in front of his wife and child, and Sister Nell's boyfriend, who was visiting the house on the fateful night, ended up shooting himself. Ollie became extremely eccentric and continued to dress like in 1901 until her death in 1940.
After Nell's death, several people claimed to have seen her ghost in the same house. A ghost roamed the stairs and appeared in one of the bedrooms. In addition, he was spotted on the porch where the breakup with Wilcox took place. Finally, one vagrant saw the ghost of a girl seen by the river, in the very place where the body was found.
Grace Brown
In 1905, 18-year-old Grace Brown worked in a skirt factory in Courtland, New York. There, she met the owner's nephew, 22-year-old Chester Gillette. By the spring of 1906, they began an affair. In May 2006, Grace announced to Chester that she was pregnant.
The guy offered to pay for the abortion, but she did not agree. She wanted to marry Chester, and he said he was getting married.
However, Grace did not wait for the offer and returned to the farm to her family. After In July, Chester wrote to Grace that he wanted to meet her at the hotel and take a little pre-wedding trip.
The young people boarded a train that brought them to Big Moose Lake. Chester was registered at the local Cavwood Lodge hotel under the name of Albany's Carl Graham.
The next day, the couple rented a boat, which was later found overturned. Grace's body was pulled out of the lake, and she had bruises on her forehead. Chester was found two days later at another resort and arrested. He claimed that Grace committed suicide, but prosecutors alleged that he hit his pregnant girlfriend in the head with a tennis racket and left her to drown. He was found guilty of murder and executed in 1908.
The story of Grace and Chester formed the basis of Theodore Dreiser's novel American Tragedy. Every year, on the anniversary of her murder, people travel to Big Moose for boat tours and a plaque.
The ghost of Grace Brown is said to visit the lake and the hotel where Grace and Chester stayed. Several people saw the ghost of a young woman. Once a ghost appeared against the background of fog that descended on the lake, in front of many people. Everyone who has seen the ghost claims that he emanates a feeling of anxiety and endless sadness.
Another curious detail: that Chester was convicted only on circumstantial evidence, but was executed for this crime. They say that the prison where he lived his last days is also haunted by his ghost.
Read the second part here.