Tuesday, October 30, 2007

How About Another Ghost Story?

Halloween isn't here yet, and I've more ghost stories from my readers left to tell! Here's the story of a "ladies man" who still likes to peek, as told by Pam:



Years ago, I dated a man off and on for about 8 months and because he wasn't "special" to me, I never even mentioned him to my family. Unfortunately, he met a ghastly end. It seems he was quite the playboy in town and also came from a very well heeled family. Prior to my dating him, he'd dated a local woman who worked as a bank teller in one of the downtown Tampa banks. She was hopelessly in love with him and, in fact, left her husband for this man. This was sadly unrequited love on her part, however, as the man in question never had any intention of marrying her. She called him one day to ask him to stop by her house after work. What happened then shocked the very core of Tampa society. In the hallway outside her bedroom she shot the man and then took her own life.


Now, fast forward about 20 years. My sister and brother-in-law, newly married at the time, rented a small home in South Tampa prior to buying their home. Very strange things happened in this home from the time they moved in. My brother-in-law's daughter had a strange encounter whereby she was certain someone was in the bedroom or outside in the hallway when she spent the night with them. After that, and not knowing this story, I stayed at their home while my sister and brother-in-law went away for the weekend. After putting my nephews to bed, I took a shower and several times the bathroom door opened....I got out of the shower each time, grabbing a towel, thinking my nephews were playing tricks on me only to discover each time that they were sound asleep. I mentioned it to my sister later and she said her step-daughter had had some of these same strange things happen to her. After a while, my sister began to feel increasingly uncomfortable in the house and one day was mentioning to the next door neighbor that she felt strange in this house. The neighbor looked at her and said "well, you know there was a murder/suicide in this house, don't you?" She, in fact, did not know this and was stunned that the realtor hadn't revealed this morbid fact. Being the investigator she is, she went to the Public Library and looked up the microfiche on the story and discovered its ghostly roots. She called me at work to tell me about it and mentioned the "socialite's" name. I almost screamed! I told her that this was a man I'd dated many, many years ago and that I very much recalled when this took place as it was only about a year after I'd dated him. I had no idea that the house they were renting was the scene of the crime and she had no idea that the man murdered there was someone I'd dated!


This is a story I can vouch for, because I know the people involved in the story personally.

The sister who rented the house that was the scene of the murder/suicide? That was me. :)

We were out of that house ASAP, but I saved the newspaper articles I found on microfiche at the library. Creepy, sad and true story.

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