Horror in the Heartland by Keven McQueen

Author:Keven McQueen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: 2017-12-13T16:00:00+00:00

William S., a farmer of Monroeville, spent September 14, 1933, nursing a toothache. A man of experimental outlook, William fired a revolver into his jaw “to shoot out the ache.” The doctors said his prognosis for survival was not heartening.

Come Sweat Death

Ralph M. of Cincinnati was using a power drill on September 13, 1938, when he died of an electric shock. Best the coroner could figure was that Ralph short-circuited the drill with his excessively perspiring hands.

Modern Mummy

Sixty-one-year-old Johannas P. told people that she didn’t want to be buried when she died; in fact, she fully intended to return from the dead. She died in her Cincinnati home in August 2003 and got her wish: her demise went unreported until January 2006, by which time she had mummified thanks to her air conditioner running nonstop. When the machine stopped running, passersby became aware of a smell that was the reverse of pleasant. Investigators opened the house and found a mummified Johannas sitting in a chair before her television. Neither her family, who lived downstairs, nor her live-in caregiver bothered to tell authorities about her passing.

A Prisoner Gets a Visitor Who Needs No Pass

Edward H., charged with grand larceny, occupied a jail cell in Canton. He received an unauthorized visitor on the night of January 17, 1884, whose appearance alarmed him so greatly that he awoke the other prisoners and jail officials with screams of “Murder! Help!”

Jailers rushed to Edward’s cell and found him so terrified that he couldn’t speak for some time. When he finally did, he described a ghost who’d entered his cell. His glassy-eyed caller raised his right hand as though swearing an oath. He appeared to have a broken neck, as his head lolled about at an unnatural angle.

Jail officials were impressed by Edward’s story, since he described perfectly a man named George McMillan, down to the clothes he wore, although Edward never had the pleasure of meeting him. George was the former occupant of the cell—but why he had returned for a walk down memory lane was anyone’s guess, as he had been hanged in Canton on July 20, 1883, for murdering his wife. Jail officials kindly permitted Edward to spend the rest of the night in a different cell.

A Skeptic Sees Something

Frank L., a fresco painter, lived in an apartment on Prospect Street in Cleveland. Between two and three o’clock on the morning of January 8, 1886, Frank awoke to see a woman sitting on a lounge a scant four feet from his bed. “What do you want?” he asked.

The woman raised her right hand and said, “Hush, hush!” She then vanished.

Frank was a disbeliever in ghosts, so he got up to seek a rational explanation. The woman was nowhere to be seen and the door was locked. Puzzled, he got back in bed and lay there for ten minutes, pondering the strangeness of it all. Then his sheets were yanked off by an unseen force, which also tumbled Frank onto the floor. He dusted himself off, recovered his dignity, searched the apartment again, and still found no solution.

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