Ghosthunting Kentucky. Patti Starr
She had on a blue dress, and he thought she was a black woman. He said that she looked at him and begged him to hide her, that they were coming to get her. Then she started to crawl in bed with them, and Al told her she couldn’t do that and asked her to leave. She disappeared and then two men, dressed in uniforms, appeared standing at the foot of the bed. He thought that maybe the woman was a slave and was being chased by these two soldiers. Al looked at the men and noticed that they were tall, and he told them that even though they were bigger than he was, they couldn’t hurt him because they were ghosts. Within a few seconds the two men disappeared and things were quiet again, so Al went back to sleep.”
The trap door that leads to the old Underground Railroad tunnels
I asked Karin if there were any unexplained sounds that they have heard in the inn. She told me that they constantly hear someone walking upstairs. She added that even the previous owners warned them about the footsteps. The former owners said that once they called the police, thinking there was an intruder in the house. The policemen also heard the footsteps on the second floor, but there was no one there. Karen told me that she thought the footsteps are the most common ghostly sound they hear. Karin remembered: “A female guest was watching TV one evening, and she heard someone walking outside her door, talking loudly. She turned the volume on the TV to mute so she could hear what they were saying, but then the voices stopped. Later the next morning, the guest commented to me that the people who came in late last night were really noisy. I had to tell her that no one else had come into the inn at that time, and there were no other rooms rented.”
In between our interviews I decided to take a break and go up to my room to relax. I love to work Sudoku puzzles so I grabbed an apple, propped myself up on my bed, and started my game. A wooden chair with a burgundy seat cushion stood across the room from me. While my eyes were focused on my Sudoku book, I could see a man sitting in the chair. I would raise my head to look at the chair, and, for a split second, I saw a man in a dark suit sitting with his legs crossed before he would disappear. I lowered my head and started my game, and, again, I could see a man sitting in the chair. As before, when I would raise my head, he would disappear. I had already learned that this used to be Dr. Hall’s bedroom. I thought it might be Dr. Hall, but I expected to see him in a white doctor’s jacket instead of a black suit.
When Chuck came back into the room I told him that I had seen a man sitting in the chair but was puzzled why he would be in a black suit. Chuck told me that Gary had just given him a tour of the inn, and while in one of the rooms, he saw a group picture of the doctors, and they were all dressed in black suits. “Okay, that works for me,” I said. When we came down for breakfast on the second day of our stay, we joined a mother and daughter who were traveling from Alabama. They had come to Glasgow to join a scrapbooking seminar. When the daughter, Shannon Gibson, saw my T-shirt, she commented on the ghosthunter.com that she observed on the back. I told her that I was a professional ghosthunter, and we were here in Glasgow to investigate haunted locations. Shannon looked at her mom, Lisa Sweet, and said, “Oh my gosh, I so totally believe in ghosts. Do you think this place is haunted?” I glanced over at Gary, and he gave me a wink and a nod, so I answered, “Well it might be, but I don’t think you have anything to fear.”
Shannon said, “Last night while in my room, I felt as if I were being watched, and once I fell asleep I kept waking up from bad dreams. Since we are in adjoining rooms, I would go and look around the corner to see if Mom was okay. When I told her about my restless night, she said she had experienced the same thing and would come around to check on me. How weird is that?”
I asked them to tell me about their dreams. “I dreamt I was in a car,” Shannon said, “driving with someone in the back seat who was complaining and making me angry, so I said to them, ‘Stop your complaining and do something about it.’ At that moment the person took a gun and held it under his chin and shot himself, which woke me up immediately.” Lisa said, “In my dream I kept seeing injured animals, and I remember there was lots of blood all around me.”
I mentioned to them that it was interesting to note how their dreams related to physical injuries. I told them that the house once belonged to a doctor, and the house served as a place where the injured would come for treatment. At times they would have to remain overnight. Once we finished visiting with our new friends, we left the second floor and met with Gary and Karin one more time in the parlor. They told us that they had purchased another historic home not too far from Hall Place. It has been labeled by the community as an old haunted house, and Chuck and I are already making plans to go back and investigate the Carrolls’ newly acquired property that they will convert into another bed-and-breakfast, which they hope to have finished by 2012. They have named the future bed-and-breakfast “1854 Bryan House.” They plan to have ghosthunter tours and overnight ghosthunts while the home is being renovated. Maybe we’ll find even more Glasgow ghosts.
CHAPTER 6
The Haunted Hospital
SCOTTSVILLE, ALLEN COUNTY
“HELLO.”
“May I please speak with Patti Starr?”
“You are speaking to Patti Starr.”
“I know you probably will not remember me, but my wife and I took your Bardstown Ghost Trek last year. After spending the evening with you and learning about ghosts and the many ways to communicate with them, I became hooked.”
This phone call was the start of a new friendship. While sitting at my computer, I was attempting to answer my e-mails when I got a phone call from a man who introduced himself as David Dinwiddie. He explained to me that he had leased an old, abandoned hospital in Scottsville, Kentucky. He and his son, Chris, were going to turn it into a haunted attraction for Halloween, but it seemed that the haunted part was becoming more real than fantasy. I was totally thrilled that I had influenced someone to start a new business and to think it was going to be opened in my favorite month of the year, October.
David had a few concerns he wanted to share with me. “Patti, when we first started to clean up the debris that had accumulated over the past several years, our volunteers noticed strange noises. They would stop their work and turn towards the sounds and listen. Then, if they heard it again, they would move towards the sound to see if someone had come into the building without permission. They told me that as they started to walk towards the sound, it would stop only to start back up again after they went back to work. Sometimes the sounds would be so loud and clear that the volunteers would become so upset they would pick up their tools and leave for the day.”
“What kind of noises did the workers hear?” I asked. David explained, “There were several different sounds reported over a four-week period. It started with the sound of babies crying. The volunteers would go over to where it sounded like a child was crying out in pain, but when they searched the area, there were no children in the hospital. They would even go outside and check the perimeter of the building to see if children were playing close by and found nothing to explain the sounds of children crying. When we started to research the building, we found where the different stations were located. It was very unnerving when we found out that the area where we heard the sounds of babies crying had been the nursery.”
“Your hospital sounds like a great place to investigate for ghosts,” I replied, and he continued, “That is exactly why I’m calling you. I would love for you to come to the hospital with your various equipment and instruments and do a ghost investigation.” I told David that I would be honored to do this, but I’d have to wait until after ScareFest, our horror and paranormal convention in Lexington, and that I would come after September. It seemed like a matter of a few days instead of months before it was time for Chuck and me to leave for Scottsville to investigate the haunted hospital. David was very kind in arranging for me to stay the night in a very haunted bed-and-breakfast about twenty miles outside of Scottsville in Glasgow, another haunted location in this book. We were driving deep into the beautiful Kentucky countryside, our first trip in that area. When I