He has seen and heard almost everything
BY JENNIFER KAPIOLANI SAXTON
News-Democrat
Seeking the truth behind urban legends and rumors of hauntings has become a lifestyle for one Illinois author.
"I'm doing something that 12-year-old boys aspire to do. At least I did when I was 12. It just shows I've never grown up," said Troy Taylor, 40, of Decatur, who still gets excited about getting tips about suspected haunted places.
When Taylor was 17, he and a group of friends had gone to a graveyard late one night and left the car's headlights on, facing the cemetery. While they were out of the car, the headlights turned off. Taylor said the battery didn't run out. The doors were locked, the windows were rolled up and the headlight switch was punched in.
"I could never explain what happened," Taylor said. "I began to think maybe's there's something to this stuff."
On Oct. 13, Taylor's 43rd book, "Bloody Chicago," was released and will be available across the country at the end of the month.
Taylor's fascination with history and his hobby of ghost hunting became his livelihood in 1993. His first book, "Haunted Decatur," was released in 1995.
"It took me two years to write the first book, but obviously it doesn't take as long for me to write a book now, since I've written 42 more since then," Taylor said.
With the popularity of "Haunted Decatur," Taylor began to wonder if people would want to take haunted tours of the places listed in the book.
"It just really caught on," he said. Now, haunted tours are offered in Alton, Springfield, Decatur, and Chicago. Taylor also hosts overnight haunted tours of other sites throughout the United States. Haunted tours will soon be offered in Jacksonville and Lebanon.
Taylor said he has been to all the haunted Illinois places listed in his books and maybe 90 percent of the other sites throughout the country.
"I just like to do that. It just brings it a little more to life for me," he said.
Does Taylor believe in ghosts?
If he didn't, he said, he couldn't have spent so much time and effort on them.
"The possibility is always there," he said. "It's still fun. I really enjoy doing it. I never get tired of it."
About a year ago, Taylor was startled while touring an abandoned tuberculosis sanitarium in Kentucky with a friend. He saw his first ghost.
"I've gone to places where strange things have happened," he said.
During the tour, the two men witnessed a man walk across the hallway, rather nonchalantly, Taylor said, about 20 feet in front of them. Both men thought the man might have broken into the building. But when they reached the room, it was empty and the doorway into the room was the only way in and out.
"I wanted out of the building right then," he said
Taylor, a member of the American Ghost Society, has lived in both Decatur and Alton. He once owned the History & Hauntings Book Co., 515 E. Third St. in Alton. It's now owned by one of Taylor's friends.
"It's something I've always been interested in," Taylor said. "The history stories are what interested me and the haunted stories just went along with it."
Other books in his collection include: "Haunted Illinois, A Ghosthunter's Guidebook," "The Devil came to St. Louis," "Mysterious Illinois," "Weird Illinois," "So there I was ... More Confessions of a Ghosthunter," "Haunted St. Louis," "The Haunting of America" and "Beyond the Grave."
For more information about the haunted Illinois tours and Taylor's books, go to www.prairieghosts.com.
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