Web puts ghosts on the map

[Carol]

Skeptics scoff at sites' tales about Warren and Sterling Heights, but there are believers, too


BY KIM NORTH SHINE

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Are restless spirits haunting the East Pointe apartments in Sterling Heights? Moving things around in tenants' closets, turning their showers on and off, and showing themselves in shadows along stairways?

Or are forgetful residents, maintenance problems and playful lighting to blame?

According to a handful of Web sites devoted to dispensing information on haunted places and ghost sightings, this apartment complex near Van Dyke and 17 Mile may be inhabited by the spirits of American Indians whose burial ground lay beneath the buildings.

"I have nothing like the shower going off and on or anything like that, but I believe in ghosts, and I know they won't hurt you," said Lucy O'Kane, a 75-year-old resident.

O'Kane has lived at East Pointe for seven years and said she regularly feels the "presence of my parents when I need them, but I've never felt anyone else."

Darlene Pelkey, a manager and maintenance supervisor at East Pointe, says the story isn't far-fetched. "I've heard a lot, a lot of people talk about this. Toilets flushing by themselves. ... I've had people ask me if someone died in their apartment because they feel someone is there," said Pelkey, who has lived at East Pointe for 27 years and worked there 18 years.

She said she considers all the possibilities -- that a person just has an active imagination or is a bit paranoid. However, Pelkey, who is part Native American, plans to research whether the site used to be an Indian burial ground as rumored.

"There is the possibility that there are ghosts," she said. "I can't say one way or another. I just listen to the stories and say, 'Wow!' "

Stories of ghost sightings and haunted places such as the one from East Pointe come from cities throughout Michigan and across metro Detroit, including at least two in Sterling Heights and eight in Warren.

The tales, whether fact or fiction, once were told the old-fashioned way: in school halls, at family dinner tables and around campfires. Thanks to the Internet, they now spread like wildfire without anyone ever coming face-to-face.

And this being the season to get spooked, people are looking for such stories.

"Latest News: Happy Halloween! 50 new stories added. Updates to 49 states and 10 countries on the Haunted Places Index," proclaims the Web site www.theshadowlands.net, one that compiles such stories.

The Web site also comes with the disclaimer warning ghost hunters not to trespass. According to theshadowlands.net, there are 12,000 reported stories from across the country.

As for the local folks who live, work and play at these supposedly haunted places, there is a mix of guarded skepticism, outright denial and belief.

Kevin Lane, a spokesman for the Fitzgerald Public Schools district in Warren, is a believer.

He can't deny a report on the Internet that says a school district building on Bart Street, which runs along the north side of Fitzgerald High School on Ryan Road, "is haunted by nuns who lived in a convent that once occupied the spot. Metal fire doors rattle on the second floor, and when you're on the first floor, you can hear footsteps above you when no one is upstairs."

The sounds of many people walking around came only in early morning or late night, when people weren't supposed to be there, he said.

The building and one sitting next to it are empty until the school district decides what to do with them. The fact that they're not used has nothing to do with ghostly inhabitants.

"I never bought into this stuff until I was there," said Lane, who has had students show him the stories on the Internet since he stopped working at that building. "Other people who have worked there said they heard things, too. ... The exterminator was there the other day and heard something."

Lane, however, can debunk a story that the Fitzgerald High pool is haunted by a boy who drowned there in the 1960s or 1970s."I've heard that rumor," he said. "The problem with that is when it was said to have happened, the pool wasn't built."

Sue Keffer has heard rumors about haunted places throughout Warren.

"People have asked me the darnedest things," said Keffer, a member of the Warren Historical Commission. "People have asked me about the Bunert School and things that happen when it's closed up. I don't know where they get it from."

The Bunert School, according to the ghost-tracking Web sites, is haunted by a janitor who died there. Witnesses claim to have heard his keys jangling at closing time.

There are also stories about parks in Warren, including Halmich, Miller and Wiegand. All have to do with children or adults being killed there and staying around to haunt. Other schools are listed as well, including Warren Woods Tower High School, which has a big, possibly haunted boulder sitting in front of the school.

Tower Principal Stacy Denewith-Fici said the students write about the inexplicable orbs and other oddities that float about the rock in the newspaper every so often, "and they seem to have fun talking about it. I myself have never seen it."

Another Warren ghost story relates to the Moore building, which was one of Warren's oldest structures, having been built in the 1870s. The building, which most recently housed a psychic's business, is at Mound and Chicago roads in Warren's historic district.

It is said that tenants have seen a man's shadow climbing the stairs, have heard footsteps where there should be none and have felt cold spots "that made their hair stand on end."

"I've never heard of that. ... My family's been in the village since the 1870s," said Dorothy Cummings, who's 83 and lives on property bought by her grandfather about two miles from the Moore building.

She is also a historian and serves on the Warren Historical Commission.

"I never know where they come up with this," she says of the stories. "This is just something they dreamed up in the 21st Century."

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/arti ... /1110/NEWS