by Chris Moon
We were so fascinated with speaking to the Kennedys that we lost track of the oddly dressed men. It was at that moment I felt my mother lightly kick the front of my shoe. It broke my concentration long enough for me to look up and see the three strange men were basically on top of us. At that very moment, Jackie Kennedy’s voice screamed through the speaker: “Run!”
I immediately shut down the session and we sprinted back to our vehicle. Once we got into the car, we locked the doors, started the car, and sped away quickly. As I drove, Dina continued to write down as many notes as possible and record all of the things that we heard and experienced that day. We were on the highway moving toward Houston when I looked in the rearview mirror and saw a black suburban with tinted windows behind us. At first I didn’t think much of it, but over time, as I switched lanes, it was obvious it was following us.
We drove for quite a while before we looked back and saw the vehicle was turning around and going back the other way. While we were being followed, it felt like we were in some sort of nightmare or bad movie. Adrenalin is the only thing that kept my mind in the moment and allowed us to escape. I don’t believe that it was simply a scare tactic; I honestly believe that if the opportunity had presented itself, we would have been abducted.
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CHAPTER · EIGHT
A Gangster, a President,
and Other Ghouls in Illinois
Over the years, I have had hundreds of encounters with famous people who have passed. Two of the most memorable experiences took place in Illinois.
The first was an exchange with President Lincoln while in Springfield. I was scheduled to do a public Ghost Box gallery reading at the Ile’s House and Museum of Springfield History, which once belonged to Lincoln’s parents’ friends. When I arrived at the location, a woman who was the curator of the museum greeted me. She was very skeptical and asked me several times if I could really communicate with the other side. I assured her I could and encouraged her to take part in the gallery reading. The event was held in the basement of the house. I sat at the front of the room with the device on a table while a few event organizers sat with me. The room was set up in a semi-circle, attendees facing me.
When I turned on the machine and established contact with my Spirit Technician, I began to let the audience ask their questions. At most events, people want to communicate with their loved ones who have passed but this time around, the majority of people wanted to reach President Lincoln. I attempted to make contact with him but first, we were greeted by Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd Lincoln. She was loud and boisterous and bragged about the museum that had been erected in the President’s honor. That is when we heard the humble voice of Abraham Lincoln come through for the first time. He didn’t sound like anyone expected him to, his voice more tenor than anything else, but it carried with it a huge presence that commanded respect. Quickly, stunned attendees started to ask him questions and it turned into a makeshift presidential press conference. “Mr. President” led every question and he graciously answered everyone. One of the audience members asked, “Mr. President, Mr. President, how do you feel about Obama becoming president?” There was a short pause before Lincoln replied, “It is my proudest moment. That is my legacy.” The room erupted with intrigue after his response.
When we reviewed the night vision videotape of the event later, we could clearly see a spirit orb fly in and circle over my head during his response, which was great validation. After our exchange about President Obama, the curator spoke up from the back of the room and asked, “How do we know that this is really President Lincoln?” There was silence over the device for a few seconds before I heard the President’s voice respond, “Coat rack.”
I was puzzled by the response but the curator pushed me for the answer. Sheepishly, I responded, “Coat rack. He said coat rack.” The woman’s face went white as she turned her back and left the room. After I finished the reading, I stood in the basement chatting with some of the attendees when I noticed the curator walking toward me. She was holding something in her hands. She walked quickly and I realized she carried a good-sized piece of wood. Panicked, I thought she was going to hit me with it. She walked up to me and motioned for me to hold out my hands. Instinctively, I did. She set the object in my hands. I was baffled. She asked, “Do you know what that is?”
I responded, “No.”
In a shaky, but matter-of-fact tone, she said, “That is the coat rack that Abraham Lincoln hand carved for his parents. We keep it hidden away in one of the closets upstairs. No one knows it’s here.” This experience confirmed for me the importance of repeating exactly what the spirits say, no matter how outlandish it may sound to me.
Another encounter with an infamous Illinois resident occurred many years ago when some of our staff members from Haunted Times Magazine invited us to Illinois to scout out possible Ghost Hunter University locations. We flew into Chicago’s Midway Airport and based ourselves at a nearby hotel. At the time we had no idea the first location our staff wanted us to see was well over two hours away! We drove out of the city and were soon treated to acres of barren land and highway.
Our first stop was a location known as Ashmore Estates. We met our staff members along the way and took two cars to the location. We followed them through several small towns, wondering if we were ever going to reach our destination. Eventually, we came upon what looked like an old, abandoned building with a modern doublewide trailer nearby. After getting out of the car, we were met by the property owner who immediately began to attempt to tell us the entire history of the building. We had to stop him mid-sentence, quickly explaining that if he gave us too much information on the history and paranormal activity, it would taint any investigation we would conduct. I think he was a little taken aback by us cutting him off, but he soon seemed to relax.
Walking into the building, I can’t say I immediately felt much activity. We took several pictures and used our EMF detector to see if we could pick up any electro-magnetic spikes inside the building. Soon, we saw positive signs of spirit activity when orbs appeared in our pictures. The thing we found most interesting is that we actually heard voices inside the building—and they were very clear. I have to admit that at one point I started to wonder if someone was hiding in the building, attempting to make us think it was more active than it really was.
I eventually pulled out the Ghost Box and did a session where I communicated with the spirit of a younger woman who told me she had been a patient inside the facility. As I relayed information coming through the device, the owner nodded his head in agreement. I could tell by his demeanor that the voices coming through the machine made him extremely uncomfortable. I believe he had been confident his property was haunted, but the reality of hearing the spirit voices was something he wasn’t prepared for.
After conducting an open-air EVP session and taking several more pictures, we decided to go outside and discuss business. It really is funny looking back on it, but the owner seemed like he was dazed. While we were talking projections and figures, he seemed to be trapped in the moment when he heard the first voice come through the Ghost Box. After looking at some initial dates to do an event, we parted ways.
The next day, our employees took us to several purportedly haunted locations throughout the Chicago area. My expectations were high, having heard all the amazing stories that had taken place in and around the city, but by the end of the day I felt extremely disappointed with the lack of activity we experienced. It wasn’t until that night we encountered some actual spirits. Sometime around 7 pm, our staff took us out to the road where people saw the famous spirit of “Resurrection Mary.” This legend is said to have sprung from the true story of a young woman named Mary who was at a local dance hall with her boyfriend in the late 1930s. They got in a fight at the dance and Mary left the hall, intending to hitchhike home. Unfortunately, she never made it—she was struck by a car and killed. Mary’s parents and boyfriend
were heartbroken. She was buried at Resurrection Cemetery, just a few miles from where she died. Mary’s spirit is said to wander along the road in an endless attempt to get home. There have been many reported sightings of Resurrection Mary over the years; she is described as a beautiful young blond woman who appears and disappears into thin air.
The Resurrection Mary road was absolutely teeming with activity. Almost every picture came back with positive evidence of spirit in the form of mists and orbs and my psychic Spidey senses were off the chart! I could’ve stayed there for hours, but the others were anxious to take us to a location nearby they believed we would really enjoy.
We soon arrived at an older, average-looking building that seemed to house some sort of restaurant or bar. As we walked in, my mother and I looked at each other. Both of us were experiencing the same sort of psychic impression. “There have been a lot of deaths here,” she whispered.
I replied, “You’re getting that too?” Before we could see any more, two men approached us and introduced themselves as the owners of the property. They were friendly but didn’t give us much information about the property and I appreciated that. They looked at each other knowingly and then told us to feel free to take a look around.
All the team members carried small pieces of equipment, but my father focused on using his camera to see if he could capture any evidence. He snapped a picture and immediately looked at the viewfinder to see if there was anything there. Very early on, he showed us different bits of evidence, from orbs to anomalous mists and even some strange shadows. As we walked through the location, it was an eclectic, almost jarring mix of the old building and its energy along with several different modern elements, such as neon signs advertising beer and other products. To be honest, it was a little bit confusing to me. I felt like spirits were reaching out to speak to me, but they seemed extremely confused and almost afraid to say anything.
My mom stayed close by my side as we ventured throughout the building. After twenty minutes or so, we met back up with the owners and asked if there were any other locations we could investigate inside the building. They said, “Yeah. Want to come upstairs and see what you can find?” As we ventured up the staircase, I started to feel that familiar sensation of energy being drained from my body. It started on my shoulder as a pinching sensation and was soon followed by a numbness and fatigue throughout my body. Soon my head began to feel very light and my chest tightened. I turned to my mother to say something, but before I could open my mouth she could see my eyes drooping and knew exactly what was happening. She grabbed my arm, attempting to give me some of her energy so I could continue to ascend the stairs. I don’t remember climbing the last set of steps, but I do clearly remember walking into a dark room at the top. My father continued to snap pictures, excitedly commenting about how many orbs he was capturing. I definitely felt this room was the source of the activity in the building.
We decided it was time to fire up the Ghost Box to see if any of the spirits wanted to communicate. As I turned on the device and started communicating with my Spirit Technician, I could already hear several lost souls attempting to communicate through the machine. The Spirit Technician assisted by telling us that this property was originally a speakeasy in the 1920s. When I relayed this information, the building’s two owners got wide-eyed. I asked the question, “Who used to run this place?” There was a moment of static and silence and then one word came through the speaker of the device: Caponi. I turned to the team and the extremely confused owners, and said, “Did you guys hear that? It said Caponi.”
Before I could say anymore, the same voice came through the machine and nearly yelled “Frank Caponi!” The owners looked so stunned I thought they might pass out.
I quickly asked, “Does this make any sense to you at all?”
One of the men looked directly in my eyes and said, “Frank Caponi. Do you know who that is?”
I said, “No.”
He continued, “Everybody’s heard of the Capones, the famous gangsters.”
I replied, “Yeah, of course.”
He said, “Their name was actually Caponi. They changed their name when they came to the United States.” I was still a bit puzzled. He went on. “Frank Capone—he’s the one that used to own this place.”
I was frozen with fear. Not only did we have this amazing communication and confirmation, but we were directly in contact with the spirit of one of the most famous gangsters in American history. It was so unsettling to me I had to shut down the device to collect myself. I reconfirmed all the information with the owners just to make sure I truly understood what was taking place. They reiterated all the facts that came through the device and said they were blown away. “This is like one of those TV shows!” one of the owners exclaimed.
I reiterated, “We get some great communication and confirmation through this machine but even I am stunned by this one!” After a few minutes we decided to turn the Ghost Box back on to see if we could gather any more information. We were soon in contact with several spirits that had been murdered inside the building.
Apparently the room we were standing in had once been Capone’s office. If there was a problem with someone in the family or organization, the person was brought to that room and many times disciplined or even snuffed out right then and there. Some of the spirits made reference to their bodies still being in or around that location. We spoke to Frank several times during that session, and unlike many spirits we speak to, his voice and personality were just as you imagined it to be. He was unapologetic for his crimes and looking back on it, I don’t feel he saw them as crimes at all. I believe he just thought of it as “doing business.”
We ended the session with more questions than answers, but all of us in the room that night felt as if we had somehow ventured into the past and spoken to a living legend. The owners thanked us repeatedly for coming in and doing the investigation and offered us the location for one of our Ghost Hunter University events.
They were in the middle of a renovation in the building and I believe the commotion and upheaval sparked the paranormal activity. Soon after we visited, we attempted to contact them by phone. Unfortunately, they sold the business to someone else and the new owners weren’t interested in ghosts, not even the ghosts that still haunt the property to this very day. I hope that one day we can return to that building and help some of the lost souls that feel like they’re trapped there—and maybe even have one more chance to speak to the notorious mafia boss Frank Capone.
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CHAPTER · NINE
Unsolved Murders
at the Lumber Baron Inn
I was sitting at the desk in my office at the newly formed Haunted Times Magazine when I received a phone call. There was a woman on the other end of the line, desperately trying to tell me about an encounter she and her husband had just experienced at a bed and breakfast in Denver. I interrupted her and asked, “Wait, did you have a paranormal experience there?”
She almost yelled, “Yes!”
I thanked her for calling and told her that we would check it out. I looked up the phone number of the business online and made a quick call.
“Hello, Lumber Baron Inn,” said the male voice on the other end of the line. I explained who I was and asked for the owner. The man said that he was, in fact, the owner and I told him about the call I received a few minutes earlier. He began to tell me about the ghost of the Lumber Baron Inn and I immediately interrupted him. He seemed a bit annoyed, but I quickly explained to him that if we were to do an investigation, it would skew my views of the property to know anything ahead of time. He said he understood and agreed to let us come out a few nights later to investigate.
The team of investigators was small—just me, my mother, and my father—but we felt we could get the job done. Pulling up to this property in the old Highlands neighborhood in Denver, the immense and impressive Victorian mansion stood out like
a diamond in comparison to the other houses. As we got out of our Jeep and started to unload equipment, my mom and I both began to sense at least one presence in or around the house. For me, the energy there was a bit more confusing than anything I’d experienced. I usually start to get some sort of impression about what may be attempting to communicate, but in this instance it was all very hazy. Both my mom and I discussed feeling some sort of oppression or depression surrounding the property, but neither of us could put our finger on what it was. A large metal fence surrounded the house and the gate made a screeching sound as it slowly swung open—like something out of a horror movie. With the cold night air and darkness as our backdrop, you couldn’t help but feel a bit creeped out about walking into this place.
We climbed the steps to the front porch and pushed the call button on the intercom at the front door. Only a few moments passed before we heard the inner door slowly creak open and then the large outer wooden door opened. There stood the man I talked to on the phone and he cordially invited us in. Walking into the house was like going back in time. There was a large, ornate wooden staircase in front of us, while off to the left you saw what appeared to be some sort of parlor. Also in front of us was what appeared to be either a dining room or library, maybe both. The enormity of this mansion was immediately evident. The man told us he had done quite a bit of work to restore the house back to its original condition and it was obvious he had spent a lot of money. He seemed to be a very nice gentleman with a very theatrical flair.
I decided the best course of action for the investigation was to have my mom spend time talking to the owner while my father and I did the bulk of the initial investigation. We went lights out in the house and decided it was best to only bring handheld devices that were easy to carry. We brought cameras, EMF meters, a crude night vision video camera, as well as digital and tape voice recorders. While we had the original Ghost Box in our possession at the time, we still didn’t believe it worked so it was sitting on a shelf back at the office.