The Calcasieu Courthouse in Louisiana is said to be haunted by Toni Jo Henry, a notorious figure in local history who was executed there in 1942. Visitors often report unexplained occurrences like strange sounds as well as the smell of burning hair from the way she died.
The Calcasieu Courthouse in Lake Charles, Louisiana, is steeped in history since it was built in 1912. And the old Parish Court House on 1000 Ryan street is also believed to be haunted by the lingering spirit of its most infamous prisoner, Toni Jo Henry. She was the first, and for now, the only female executed by the electric chair in the state.
The Haunted Courthouse: Calcasieu Parish Courthouse in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places. // Source. It is said that the court building is haunted by the murderer, Toni Jo who were put to death by the electric chair: Wikimedia
The Life and Crimes of Toni Jo
In the early 1940s, Toni Jo, a former sex worker, gained national notoriety for her cold-blooded murder of a man named Joseph P. Calloway.
Her real name was Annie Beatrice McQuiston, and she had lived a rough life. After her mother died early on from tuberculosis, she ended up as a prostitute. She started out working in a factory, but after her foreman knew about her mother, fearing her to contaminate other workers,he fired her. When she told her father about what happened, he beat her up and she ended up leaving home in search of a new life.
She fell in love with a man named Claude Henry, or simply Cowboy when she was working in a brothel, and it is said she got clean and wanted a new life in California. He, on the other hand, was a fugitive after killing a cop, awaiting 50 years in jail. She married him, but he was arrested soon after.
Toni Jo wanted to get him out of the Texas jail he was serving time. She teamed up with a homeless man named Arkie and brutally tortured and killed a car salesman named Joseph Calloway who picked them up along the road in Jennings, Louisiana.
They dumped the body in a ditch and went straight to a dive bar the same night. Drunk at a bar they bragged about it and the other people present reported them to the cops at once.
Her charm and beauty couldn’t save her, as it took three grueling trials before a jury finally convicted her of the heinous crime three times. On November 28, 1942, Toni Jo made history as the first and only woman in Louisiana to be executed in the electric chair. And the place it happened was in The Calcasieu Courthouse.
She said in an interview right before her execution to the the American Press’ Eliot Chaze:
“The victim does not return to haunt me. I never think of him. I’ve known all along it would be my life for his. I believe mine is worth as much to me as his was to him. I wonder, though, sometimes, why it’s legal now for another fellow to kill me.”
Outside, thousands of people had gathered. Some to see justice be done as the court had ordered, some supported her, thinking that killing her as well was no justice at all.
The Haunting of Toni Jo
Since her execution, tales of Toni Jo’s restless spirit have permeated the The Calcasieu Courthouse where the execution took place. Employees and visitors alike have reported feeling an unsettling presence, particularly in the areas where she spent her final days. Some have even claimed to smell the distinct and eerie scent of her perfume or even of burning hair, a grim reminder of her tragic end. There are also stories about hearing the sounds of her footsteps or even her dying screams.
The ghost of Toni Jo Henry is said to be mischievous, often disrupting the daily routines of The Calcasieu Courthouse staff. Locked doors that were previously open, office equipment that malfunctions without explanation, and lights that flicker ominously are just a few of the strange occurrences attributed to her. Some workers have even reported hearing soft whispers and feeling an icy chill when passing through certain hallways.
Perhaps some have even seen her as she looked in her final moment in a simple white dress holding a white ivory crucifix. Her long black hair she got much attention for, cut off.
Face of a Killer: The case got a lot of attention by the media. Both for her terrible crime as well for her good looks. Here is a photo of Toni Jo Henry being held for press photographers by Sheriff Henry W. Reid on February 21, 1940. // Source
Toni Jo’s spirit seems determined to leave her mark on the place where she met her fate, making the Calcasieu Courthouse a focal point for ghost hunters and paranormal enthusiasts. The haunted legend of Toni Jo Henry continues to captivate and terrify those who walk the halls of the courthouse, ensuring that her story—and her presence—remain an indelible part of Lake Charles’ dark history.
Long after the vampire manic swept through New England, a grave of a young girl with a curious epitaph became accused of being the grave of a vampire. Now it is said that Nellie Vaughn is haunting her grave now removed because of vandalism, trying to clear her name.
Deep in the woods of West Greenwich, Rhode Island, where the wind moves with a whisper and moss grows thick on broken stones, was a grave marked with one of the eeriest epitaphs in New England:
“I Am Waiting and Watching For You.”
That chilling inscription, paired with the tragic story of a 19-year-old girl named Nellie Vaughn, has birthed decades of eerie folklore, ghost stories, and whispered warnings. But the truth? It’s not about a bloodthirsty vampire rising from her grave—it’s about a girl caught in the shadow of another legend, and a ghost story that may say more about us than about her.
A Girl in a Grave, a Town with a Legacy
Nellie Louisa Vaughn, also spelled Nellie Louisa Vaughan, died in 1889, just 19 years old, and was laid to rest in the Plain Meeting House Cemetery in West Greenwich. At a glance, her story seems tailor-made for gothic folklore: a young woman, tragically taken in the prime of her life, buried beneath a cryptic and spine-tingling epitaph.
But her death was not accompanied by accusations of vampirism. Decades after her death, there were rumors that no plants would grow on her grave and that the grave itself was looking to sink into the ground. Was something crawling in and out? Was it perhaps something supernatural about her death and her grave?
By the 1970s, she was a well known local legend, her grave vandalised and her story made the newspapers.
The Vampire Panic of New England
To understand how this happened, we have to rewind just a few years and drive a few miles east to Exeter, where a young woman named Mercy Brown died of tuberculosis in 1892—just three years after Nellie. Mercy’s family had already lost several members to the same wasting illness. When her brother Edwin began to fall ill, the townspeople demanded action. They exhumed Mercy’s body and found it, preserved in cold storage, with “fresh” blood in the heart.
The solution? They removed the heart and liver, burned them, and fed the ashes to Edwin in a desperate effort to save him. It didn’t work—but the story exploded. It was reported in newspapers across the country and even overseas. Some say Bram Stoker himself read about it while writing Dracula.
That gruesome tale became the definitive American vampire legend. But what does it have to do with Nellie?
The True Vampire Lore: Gravestone of Mercy L. Brown, a key figure in Rhode Island’s vampire legend, who died on January 17, 1892, at the age of 19.
Mistaken Identity—or Manufactured Mystery?
Fast-forward to the mid-to-late 20th century. A curious thing began to happen: Nellie Vaughn’s grave started attracting attention. Visitors began whispering that she, not Mercy, was Rhode Island’s real vampire. Her grave was vandalized. Her name was spoken on ghost tours. Paranormal thrill-seekers claimed to feel her presence, hear phantom whispers, or see flickers of movement in the trees near her resting place.
Some say that she was buried alive, that she got a stake through her heart and that she was one of the undead from the New England Vampire Epidemic.
But here’s the kicker: there is no historical evidence that Nellie was ever considered a vampire by her contemporaries.
Folklorist Michael Bell, author of Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England’s Vampires investigated what really was going on with the lore. Bell has spent decades researching the vampire panic and says Nellie Vaughn’s legend is pure folkloric conflation—a mash-up of Mercy Brown’s well-documented case, Nellie’s proximity in age and location, and the spine-chilling line carved on her gravestone.
There is a story about a teacher at the local high school in Coventry that told about the Mercy Brown legend in the 1960s. But saying nothing about the specific name or grave, the students stumbled across Nellies’ and said it was this. There have been numerous attempts to track down the teacher, but they have been unsuccessful.
From Human Tragedy to Urban Legend
Nellie Vaughn was a real person, not a creature of the night. She died young, likely of pneumonia or a similar illness on 31 March in 1889—tragic, but not supernatural. She was first buried on her family farm, but in October that year, her mother was given permission to move her remains to the public cemetery.
There is not really much to indicate that her family or anyone believed her to be a vampire in that time, and the legends came after. The earliest documentations for the legend are the newspaper articles from the 70s.
The vandalism of her grave, the repeated breaking of her headstone, and the ghost-hunting theatrics are the unfortunate side effects of myth overtaking memory. In the end they had to remove her tombstone to protect it from the vandals and now, she is hidden in an unmarked grave.
Her story, like many ghost tales, is less about the dead and more about the living: our obsession with mystery, our fear of death, and our irresistible urge to turn sorrow into spectacle.
The Ghost of Nellie Vaughn
After the vampire legends started to stop, the ghost legends took over. People have now reported about hearing her voice close to her gravesite close to the large crypt, saying: I am perfectly pleasant.
There has also been said that a woman wearing Victorian clothes has been seen but vanishes. In most stories she is said to say either, I am perfectly pleasant or I am happy.
Ghost tours mention her name. Paranormal groups claim her spirit haunts the woods. Some say that she came back as a ghost in order to clear her name. Or are we still just profiting on the tombstone of a girl that happened to die during a Vampiric Mass Hysteria?
Nellie Vaughn deserves better than the chains of folklore forged around her grave. She was not exhumed. She was not accused. She was not a vampire. But her story reveals something powerful: how easily we can reanimate the past, and how quickly history can become horror.
Because of the vandalism she suffered, the graveyard had to remove her tombstone in the 90s. Now the grass is growing freely and there is no problem with it sinking into the ground. When the people wandering over it stopped, so did the signs of the legend.
Said to be the mass burial place for the dead Irish Independence rebels from 1798, the Croppie’s Acre in Dublin is said to be haunted by their lingering souls.
Once a green paradise, the legend says the fairies protected the people of Val Gerina valley in the Swiss alps. Driven by greed to impress a woman however, the son meant to continue the tradition and friendship with the fairies, brought it all down.
Haunted by its former Fellows, Trinity College in Dublin is said to be filled with eerie spirits where even the bell tolls after dark when the shadows take over campus.
A true story morphed into a fairytale, the life and death of the French Countess Marie Louise St. Simon-Montleart has become the stuff of legends. Buried in the forest close to Wildegg Castle in Switzerland, it is said she is haunting the castle and the forest, her sanctuary.
Crossing through the Jura Mountains in Switzerland, an urban legend about the ghost of a lady in white is said to have haunted the Belchen Tunnel and was widely known and written about in the 80s. Question is, is she still haunting the tunnel?
After falling to his death trying to escape the debtor’s prison, The Marshalsea Barracks in Dublin, it is said the ghost of Pat Doyle is haunting the remaining walls of the ruins.
Planted to mark the mass grave of plague victims, the Linden Tree in the Aargau valley in Switzerland has become a famous landmark. In the night though, it is said that the ghosts buried underneath it crawls from the ground to haunt as a warning for any oncoming tragedies.
A rebel and freedom fighter for Irish independence is said to haunt his favorite pub, The Brazen Head in Dublin, where it is said he plotted his fight against the English.
The black cat in European folklore is shrouded in mystery and magical lore. From the old parts of Bern, ghost stories of ghostly black cats linger in the shadows, reminding about the old fear the feline specter used to hold over people.
Mirroring the famous Dance Macabre mural that used to hang on the walls near the Predigerkirche in Basel, it is said that plague victims were buried in the patch of grass outside of the church. Legend has it that when the city needs it, the dead will rise from it in a macabre procession, as a warning of an oncoming disaster.
Where history whispers and shadows reign, the Rathaus in Bern is said to be haunted by a myriad of ghosts. Who are the ghosts lingering in the City Hall after dark?
Pale and with blood shot eyes, a group of mysterious women set their foot on Louisiana ground for the first time. Shipped from France, they were the promised girls for the colonial men to be their wives. Who were the Casket Girls? Just innocent women far away from home, or blood thirsty vampires?
In a city saturated with ghost stories, voodoo queens, and haunted mansions, few legends hold as eerie a grip on New Orleans folklore as that of Les Filles à la Cassette — the Casket Girls. Even today, the colonial mail order brides of Louisiana suffer from inaccurate memories and dark legends and it is difficult to separate fact from fiction..
Their tale, with its whiff of vampirism, colonial intrigue, and the restless dead, is as much a part of the French Quarter’s haunted past as the foggy alleys and crumbling tombs of St. Louis Cemetery. And like all great New Orleans ghost stories, it begins with a boat ride and ends with a coffin.
The Casket Girls: The Les Filles à la Cassette as they were originally called, were a group of women shipped to the colonies in order to marry and grow the colony of New France. They got their name from their little trunks they carried all their belonging in. Years later, the supernatural rumors surrounding these women, doesn’t seem to be letting go.
Daughters of the King or the Women Without a Future
The Casket Girls were a group of mail order brides sent from the old country to New France to populate the colonies, severely lacking European females. It was not the first time the country had sent a shipment of women for this purpose. In the early 18th century, when New Orleans was a young, swampy French colony teeming with soldiers, fortune-seekers, and rogues, women were in short supply. In a move both practical and ominous, the French government arranged for young, virtuous women from convents and orphanages to be shipped to Louisiana to marry settlers and help “civilize” the rough colony.
It was not only to get the men a wife, but a white and European wife, because, as Commissary Jean-Baptiste Dubois Duclos said: “[i]f no French women come to Louisiana, the colony would become a colony of mulastres” (people of mixed race).
The Governor of Louisiana hoped for something like the Filles du Roi of Quebec in New France and Jamestown, that had young gentlewomen volunteering to go to colonies to marry the men in exchange for a dowry by the king. These were seen as proper brides and a welcome addition to creating a new world in the colonies. At first at least, and they too would later be remembered as prostitutes by many. Although much needed, the much needed brides are remembered through a thin veil of misogyny and sexism.
The Pelican Girls Comes to Louisiana
When the southern part of North America started to form as a colony, they needed brides for the frontier men here as well. The first shipments to the French colony in Biloxi in Mississippi on the Pelican in 1704. This was the capital of the French owned North America called La Louisiane. Coming on a boat known as Pelican, the woman was later known as: The Pelican Girls. The women there had been chosen for their virtue and piety.
The King’s Daughters: The Arrival of the French Girls at Quebec, 1667.This is the type of group they were hoping to get with The Casket Girls.
Their voyage over the Atlantic held them chained together in the ship’s hold and some never made it across and died of yellow fever. After six months at sea where they stopped at Havana for supplies, twenty three women with their nun chaperones arrived. The women were accompanied by three gray nuns called soeurs grises from the charity hospital La Salpêtrière in Paris.
The women, seeing the harsh conditions and lack of comfort felt tricked and tried to leave. Dirty shacks as houses, deer skin over the windows as curtains and men that were never home. Many of them returned to France, some were denied and forced to marry. In the end, no one wanted to come to Louisiana. They rebelled and refused to cooperate in what was known as the Petticoat Rebellion.
Comfort Women: Engraved by Pierre Dupin ( 1690-1751 ) after Antoine Watteau, this Departure for the Islands represents the deportation of the “comfort women” to America, to whom the legend ironically invites in these terms: “Come on, we must leave without being asked, Darlings,…”
After the women started to demand a decent living, the French men changed their perspective on them, thinking the women difficult because of their demands. They thought about sending a different set of women. For the next shipments to the colonies, the government went to darker places to pick out the brides.
A Strange Cargo from France
Then there was the Casket Girls, and there is little documentation that they ever did exist, at least as to how they are remembered in legend.
258 women were shipped from France to Louisiana between 1719 to 1721. 80 of them came over on La Baleine in 1721 to Mobile bay in Alabama. 29 of them were orphanages, 35 were from poor houses and 194 were convicted criminals from La Force prison. French officials called them “women without futures.” Some of the womens families had even sent them there themselves to be rid of them.
Cassette: 17th century chest, similar to what the Casket Girls must have been carrying. // Source: Courtesy of the Canadian Museum of History.
These young women, the youngest a 12 year old former sex worker in Paris, arrived from France carrying small rectangles that were rather coffin-shaped luggage trunks called cassettes, meant to hold their modest belongings — linens, and clothes, caps, chemise, stockings. Over time, the word cassette became casquette and was translated from French to casket.
Mail order Brides: In 1713 a group of 12 women arrived. They were described as ugly and poor with no linen, clothes or beauty vallet The Casket Girls. Rumours circulated that the captain had raped all of them during their voyage. Only three of them married, and that the future mail order bride should be more beautiful than pretty. Image depicting Women coming to Quebec in 1667, in order to be married to the French Canadian farmers. Jean Talon, intendant of New France, and François de Montmorency-Laval, bishop of Quebec, are waiting for the arrival of the women.
To the lonely, desperate colonists, these girls seemed heaven-sent at first, but then, fear and suspicion crept up on them. As the shipment started to give them other than the “virtuous” like the Pelican Girls, the treatment of them also worsened. To the officials in Louisiana, they were appalled by the backstory of the women they had been sent.
Many complained about their behavior and some men even refused to marry them, although most of The Casket Girls were married within six months of stepping off the ships. Some of the women were also forced to marry. To the more superstitious locals, they seemed to bring with them something… unnatural.
The Casket Girls have later in legends been described as looking more dead than alive when they stepped off the boat. Pale from the lack of sunlight and emancipated after the long months at sea. In the harsh sun, their skin burned quickly and blistered.
The Vampire Rumors Take Root
Soon after the arrival of the Casket Girls, strange happenings reportedly plagued the colony. Having been picked out from prisons, there was certainly an uptick in crime and prostitution from the little female population.
Illness swept through the settlements, livestock died under mysterious circumstances, and tales of bloodless corpses began to make the rounds. Was it the humid and harsh environment of Louisiana, or something darker? Legend spoke of bodies found with their throat ripped open and drained of blood.
The Vampires at the Old Ursuline Convent
The most persistent version of the story of The Casket Girls claims that the cassettes were taken to the Ursuline Convent in the French Quarter of New Orleans, still an outpost of the colony. The building is still on Chartres Street and is the oldest in the Mississippi Valley. On the first floor, there was an orphanage with classrooms and an infirmary, and the nuns lived on the second floor. On the third floor there was an attic and a couple of living quarters for those in need.
Ursuline Nuns: Sister Marie-de-Jesus, “Arrival of the Ursulines and the Sisters of Charity in New France,” Painted in 1928. Photo from the Virtual Museum of Canada.This nun order was the first nun order to set their foot and work on the New France colony.
The Ursuline Order came from Rouen in France, to the marshy frontier of New Orleans, or Nouvelle Orleans as it was then. They were said to chaperone a shipment of The Casket Girls when they arrived, but the order has denied their involvement with the mail order brides.
In 1728, a group of Casket Girls arrived from France. They were taken to the convent for safekeeping until they could find suitable husbands to them, but soon, rumors started to form. Strange sounds were heard at night — rustlings, scratching, and sighs that no mortal throat could make.
The Sealed Attic Mystery
Perhaps the creepiest element of the legend involves the convent’s attic The Casket Girls were said to have been placed in. Some of the nuns were suspicious of the casket-like trunks they traveled in (here the lore has enlarged the trunks). Their suspicion grew when the strange deaths kept happening around the convent. When the nun checked them, the coffins were empty. Some say that the Casket Girls smuggled the vampires to the crescent city of New Orleans in the trunks or that they themselves were the vampires, sleeping in their coffins when the sun was out.
Local lore insists that after unnerving occurrences and when the nuns discovered that the brides were actually vampires, the nuns moved the cassettes — and possibly something else — to the third-floor attic and sealed the shutters tight with silver nails blessed by the Pope himself to keep them trapped. 800 of these nails to be exact. How the Pope heard about this and sent them from the Vatican is never mentioned though.
More Than Vampires Haunting the Convent: In addition to stories about the Casket Girls, there are also stories about ghosts of soldiers from the War of 1812 haunting the former convent as it was used as a hospital then. Ghost children from the time as an orphanage are heard laughing and playing in the garden. Later, bones from children were dug up on the property. // Source
To this day, it’s said the shutters on the attic’s windows remain closed and secured, even through the fiercest hurricanes. Some claim that attempts to open them have been met with bad luck, death, or worse. Occasionally claim to see pale faces or flickering figures at the darkened windows, said to be the spirit of The Casket Girls or perhaps the starved vampires they turned out to be.
And when tourists pass by the convent at night, many report a lingering sense of being watched — or of catching fleeting movement from the sealed windows above or hearing their footsteps from the third floor, following them through the building.
The Undead Legacy of the Casket Girls
In the legends, the caskets are often told to fit the girls themselves, being shipped in lockdown. In truth, these trunks they were named after were small so that the women could carry them themselves. The legend of the Ursuline Convent mostly talks about them arriving in 1728, however, historical records claim that only Ursuline nuns came over to New Orleans that year and that the Casket Girls came as mentioned earlier. New Orleans wasn’t founded as a city until 1718-1721. Some even argue that there were no Casket Girls in New Orleans at all.
In addition, the convent building we see today wasn’t even finished until 1752-1753. So where did the legends come from? Is it simply something made up in the 20th century after the meaning of the words transformed over time? There are, after all, no sources found for the casket girls being vampires until then.
Some speculate that them being vampires, were something that came from the Anne Rice novels about vampires in New Orleans.
But the legend is far from dead. There is also a persistent rumor that a group of ghost hunters did some investigation to the legend in the 70s. They turned up dead the next morning, and all the footage they got from their investigation was destroyed and the evidence for the lingering casket girls having anything to do with it, erased.
New Orleans, a city forever teetering between life and death, has a knack for breathing unholy life into its own legends. Whether born from coincidence, homesick imaginations, or darker forces, the tale of the Casket Girls has never truly been laid to rest.
Said to be the mass burial place for the dead Irish Independence rebels from 1798, the Croppie’s Acre in Dublin is said to be haunted by their lingering souls.
Once a green paradise, the legend says the fairies protected the people of Val Gerina valley in the Swiss alps. Driven by greed to impress a woman however, the son meant to continue the tradition and friendship with the fairies, brought it all down.
Haunted by its former Fellows, Trinity College in Dublin is said to be filled with eerie spirits where even the bell tolls after dark when the shadows take over campus.
A true story morphed into a fairytale, the life and death of the French Countess Marie Louise St. Simon-Montleart has become the stuff of legends. Buried in the forest close to Wildegg Castle in Switzerland, it is said she is haunting the castle and the forest, her sanctuary.
Crossing through the Jura Mountains in Switzerland, an urban legend about the ghost of a lady in white is said to have haunted the Belchen Tunnel and was widely known and written about in the 80s. Question is, is she still haunting the tunnel?
After falling to his death trying to escape the debtor’s prison, The Marshalsea Barracks in Dublin, it is said the ghost of Pat Doyle is haunting the remaining walls of the ruins.
Planted to mark the mass grave of plague victims, the Linden Tree in the Aargau valley in Switzerland has become a famous landmark. In the night though, it is said that the ghosts buried underneath it crawls from the ground to haunt as a warning for any oncoming tragedies.
A rebel and freedom fighter for Irish independence is said to haunt his favorite pub, The Brazen Head in Dublin, where it is said he plotted his fight against the English.
The black cat in European folklore is shrouded in mystery and magical lore. From the old parts of Bern, ghost stories of ghostly black cats linger in the shadows, reminding about the old fear the feline specter used to hold over people.
Mirroring the famous Dance Macabre mural that used to hang on the walls near the Predigerkirche in Basel, it is said that plague victims were buried in the patch of grass outside of the church. Legend has it that when the city needs it, the dead will rise from it in a macabre procession, as a warning of an oncoming disaster.
Where history whispers and shadows reign, the Rathaus in Bern is said to be haunted by a myriad of ghosts. Who are the ghosts lingering in the City Hall after dark?
For years, the old Joller House that used to be in Stans was plagued by a poltergeist-like haunting that drove an entire family out of the city? What really happened within the walls where the knocking and scratching of the walls seemed to come from the other side?
Tucked away in the Swiss town of Stans, in the canton of Nidwalden, once stood an ordinary-looking residence with an extraordinary, and deeply unsettling, secret. Known today as the Joller House poltergeist, this case remains one of Switzerland’s earliest documented hauntings and one of its most mysterious ones.
Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Switzerland
For a brief, terrifying period in the mid-19th century, the Joller House was the scene of violent, unexplained phenomena that left an entire community shaken and drove an entire family out. What happened in this house said to be haunted by a poltergeist?
The Haunted Joller House: Although it was torn down in 2010, the ghost story of the Joller House still linger in Stans. // Source: Nidwalden State Archives, StANW OD 1-9/4
The Joller Family Backstory
The central figure in this grim account was Melchior Joller (1818-1865), a seemingly respected lawyer and Nidwalden official and state archivist, known for his rationality and standing in the local government pushing for a liberal politic. He was a son of Jokob Joller, a farmer and Catholic churchwarden.
Melchior Joller in his younger years.
Although he is remembered as a stand up person in society, he wasn’t the most successful. He had served a single three-year term as a backbencher in the National Suisse and had run for office in Nidwalden, but was never elected. His liberal newspaper got him in trouble with the Catholic clergy. He also wrote a pamphlet Darstellung selbsterlebter mystischer Erscheinungen (Narrative of personally experienced strange phenomena) where he detailed strange things happening in his house.
In November 1842, he married Karoline Wenz and they had seven children together. The house in question was Joller’s childhood home, built by his grandmother, and he had lived there all of his life except for his years at university, and co-owned it with a sister or sisters. In 1845, he took over the house and farm that his grandmother had built. And his grandmother was no other than Veronika Gut.
Veronika Gut and her Lasting Presence in Stans
Melchior Joller has been remembered for the ghost story happening in his home, but his grandmother was remembered for her life. She was born in 1757 in Stans and was a fierce supporter for the Nidwalden resistance and Swiss cause against the French Helvetic Republic. In 1798 she was already a widow with six children, living on a farm in Spichermatt in Stans. When the conflict escalated to an invasion, she donated 600 guilders to the war chest.
Veronika Gut: Remembered as a powerful woman. Here from Landschaftstheater Ballenberg: Veronika Gut – Uprising in Nidwalden, an open-air theater from 2017.
After the invasion she was arrested and tried as a rebel and fined. She was also sentenced to stand in front of the local church every Sunday with a note saying: “Liar and Disturber of Peace.” She was ordered to wear a black cape for a year, a humiliating thing as respectable women wore white. But she wore it with so much pride that she was told to remove it.
The previous house had been burned down when the French invaded in September 1798. Her 17 year old son, Leonz Joller died in battle as well. In her new house in Nägeligasse in Stans, she established a patriotic party in 1813 after Napoleon lost and held secret meetings in the evenings. Although she remarried to Melchior Odermatt, she was always known by her maiden name.
The Style of House: Photo taken by Jakob Hunziker traveled extensively in Switzerland between 1883 and 1895. This house, looking very similar to the Joller house was in Wolfenschiessen.
Her life was filled with opinions, personal tragedies and political resistance. According to some rumors, it was also said that her spirit lingered in the house she built, and that she would come back in her afterlife with as much force that she had when alive.
The Haunting Starts in the Joller House
In 1860, Joller then 42, his wife, and their children lived in a seemingly pleasant home in Stans he had inherited from his parents, close to Lake Lucerne, unaware of the terror that would soon unfold. They had four sons, Robert (1843), Eduard (1851), Oskar (1853) and Alfred (1858) and their three daughters Emaline (1845), Melanie (1848) and Henrika (1850).
Family Photo: The Joller Family who lived in the Joller House and claimed they were plagued by a poltergeist for years.
They also lived with their servants who according to Joller, were the first to notice strange things happening in the Joller House. Sleeping on the third floor in the attic, she started to hear a knocking on her bed head during the night in fall in 1860. She told Joller about it, thinking it meant someone in the house was about to die.
Joller told to shut up about these things and forgot about it until another experience a few weeks later. A knocking noise also woke up Karoline and their second daughter, Melanie, who shared a bedroom when Joller was away from home on a business trip. According to them, it was as if the knocking was trying to communicate with them and they became frightened. Then a year passed and they thought nothing of it anymore.
In June 1861, nine year old Oscar was nowhere to be found when they called for supper, and they searched for him, finding him unconscious in a room on the third floor they used to store logs. When he woke up, he claimed to have heard three knocks and went to check it out. A door flung open and a formless white shape entered and he passed out.
The following days, the boys sleeping in the bedroom on the second floor above the living room, started complaining about knocking noises. It seemed to come from the floor above them. When they told their father, he even heard something sounding like scratching on the walls, but thought it had to be a cat or a rat making the sound. In his memoir Joller also adds the detail that he had heard this noise many times before in his study, perhaps for the past two years.
That autumn, a maid said she had seen grey shapes appearing and that someone was coming up the stairs at night, walking right past her and into a living room when she was cleaning shoes on the stairs. She had also several times heard her name being called out by no one. Once she also heard something she described as “profoundly disturbing sobs.”
The maid’s stories angered Joller and Karoline told her to not talk about these things to the children, thinking she was too superstitious. 11 year old Henrika even claimed to have seen a small child shortly after when she was doing schoolwork. This frightened her so much she refused to enter the living room.
Joller decided to fire the housemaid that had claimed to see and hear the strange things that October. In his writings he claims it was because they would be able to manage the household themselves, but who knows. Was he angry about her talking about seeing ghosts to his children? Did he try to get her to quit the job because of financial problems? He instead hired a 13 year old girl to replace her, and for a time, it seemed that this had solved the problem except from the odd scratching on the walls and mysterious knocking sounds here and there throughout the house.
The Haunted Summer at the Joller House
Again it came a winter of silence, but the summer of 1862, the paranormal activity hit full force. On 15 of August, Joller went to Lucerne with his wife and Robert at seven in the morning. They left the house and the rest of the children with the 14 year old Melanie and the 13 year old servant girl.
Henrika started to hear a rapping noise and told Melanie and the servant girl. They went to investigate. Oscar and Edward also came trying to coax the spirit to give them a sign. But the children became afraid and fled the house, sitting outside on the front steps.
When they went back in at lunchtime, hungry and rattled, every single cupboard and door had opened when they were outside. They shut them all, bolting what they could. But as soon as they had closed them, they sprung open, including the bolted ones.
A sound of heavy footsteps were heard and the children fled out the house again. As the servant girl looked behind her, she claimed she saw the shape that looked something like a hung sheet in the corner coming towards her before disappearing when she called out with their food they ate outside under a hazel tree. .
The children reached the barn where some laborers were working. They took turns running back to the house to see what was going on, and according to them, a lot was going on. The sound of moving furniture, a voice saying “even if no one is around”, in a sad and groaning voice. A voice singing to a single-tone string was playing Camille’s prayer in Zampa, from the Ferdinand Herold opera from the upstairs living room.
Frightened, they all gathered under a tree when an old woman passed by and asked if this was where Veronika Gut had lived. The children confirmed, and the woman, claiming she had known her when she was alive started to tell them about the tragic story that happened generations ago.
The Story of the Drowned Girls
Three years after the house had burned down, Veronika had heard a mysterious voice, telling her to flee with her family because the French had invaded again in 1801. The French had not actually invaded, but she decided to run away to Engelberg with her children.
Joller’s father was with them initially, but for some reason, they split up and he went to another place with a guide. At Wolfenschiessen there was a narrow footbridge of the Engelberger Aa river the daughters Agatha, Franziska, Josefa and Anna had to cross. Veronika crossed first, then her eldest daughter of 19 followed, then the rest. The bridge collapsed and although Veronika managed to jump to firm ground, all of her daughters fell into the river and drowned.
According to the old woman, she had been the one ringing the bell in St Joder’s chapel after the tragedy. That night they had seen a man dressed in white, carrying a lamp and coming to the chapel, the sign that the bell was about to toll. But when her brother had gone to check, he hadn’t seen anyone and it wasn’t until the morning that they heard about the terrible news.
The Drowned Girls: Engelberger Aa, near Wolfenschiessen, Switzerland were Veronika Gut’s daughters perished. // Source
The old woman continued on her way, and the children had to get back into the house for their next meal. When the maid was preparing for supper in the kitchen, a light was seen coming down the chimney in the evening. The maid explained the sight as an object of little blue flames, exploding inside of the chimney and dowsing the fire with water. This was the final straw and ran off to the annex where the mother found them crying and frightened to death.
When Joller came back home from Lucerne and heard the stories the frightened children told him, he didn’t believe a single word and the children lost faith in him and decided to not tell him anything else, as they thought that he wouldn’t believe them anyway. This would however change when he experienced the so-called haunting himself. Later he had also heard from a relative in Germany that their whole family had experienced something similar the same day.
Joller Starts to Believe Something is Going on
On August 19, he started to hear the rapping noise of the wall, taunting, almost mimicking the noises he made. This made him promise his family he would investigate the matter. The next day he saw the door between the bedroom and kitchen bend before his eyes as the sound of knocking and banging came back. When he raised the catch on the door, it flung open and he saw a dark and almost shapeless form moving from the door to the chimney and disappeared.
The next day he saw what he described as a force as “powerful as a wooden mallet might make when swung with all the strength of a powerful arm.” The doors were slammed and opened with this force, in the kitchen, bottles and other glassware were ringing as being hit by metal. The sounds coming from different parts of the house made it look like it had to be four, maybe five people. His wife and son claimed to have seen a figure and he himself saw something dark shooting from the door to the side of the chimney before disappearing.
He called on his older sister to ask about if she had ever experienced something similar growing up in the house. She claimed she had never heard anything about it. A priest came by and gave the house a blessing and advised him to not let anyone else know about what was happening there. When the priest left, the whole house started up violently all evening.
The gossip about what happened in the Joller house started to spread to the neighbors, claiming that they too could hear all the ruckus. They stopped outside on the road to listen for the noises. The press started writing about it, and Joller felt they were also attacking his character.
Then, on 23 August Joller, his wife and a servant were all touched on the head in a first-floor bedroom. It was like a hand, and when Joller and Caroline grabbed the hand it felt warm and small, like a child’s. By now they had police guards helping them, as they were starting to fear they might get hurt.
On the 16 of September, Joller saw an apple, jumping around and down the stairs, along the corridor and into the kitchen. When picked up and put on the kitchen table, it jumped off and headed for the corridor. It was thrown out of the window by one of the servants, but flew back to the kitchen table before continuing jumping around the house on its own.
On the 6 of October, five different people claimed to have seen a figure on four different occasions. It was described as a woman, bowing her head with a melancholic air about her. Melanie claimed it was the same figure she had encountered and seen on the 10 September.
A Tragic Aftermath
The strain of the haunting proved too much for Joller. Later that month the final straw was drawn for the Joller family. They packed up and left the Joller House forever and moved to Zurich where they rented. No one really knows what happened that made the family decide that enough was enough.
It is also worth noting that he had to appear in court three times on fraud charges together with Robert and they left a huge debt back in Stans. Some speculate that moving his family to Zurich and then to Rome was a financial move to get away from the debt.
In any case, the stress got to him, and contemporary sources claim that his hair turned white almost overnight in Zurich and had a “a peculiar dreamy look about his eyes” according to paranormal societies across Europe who picked up the case.
According to Joller who sold the Joller House to the Lussi family. The house was closed down until spring in 1863, and as far as he knew, nothing out of the ordinary had happened in the house.
A man named Emilio Servadio contacted Emaline in 1938 and interviewed her about the story, and she said that the poltergeist didn’t follow them to their new home. Her father died in 1865 in Rome where he had been hoping to see the pope, exiled and in poverty after he had been ridiculed by family and friends and lost his positions in Switzerland. He was only 47.
Left to Decay: For decades, the Joller house was left empty, gathering dust and legends before being torn down. // Source: Nidwalden State Archives
Explanations and Theories
As with many poltergeist cases, contemporary explanations struggled to make sense of the phenomena. Some suspected that one of the Joller children might be unconsciously causing the disturbances, a theory common to 19th-century poltergeist lore, which often linked such hauntings to pubescent or emotionally distressed young people.
Joller himself maintained that the disturbances were neither tricks nor delusions. His attempts to logically document and combat the events only added to the eerie credibility of the case.
Another theory about who was behind it all was Robert. He came under suspicion, particularly after he was seen talking to an actor in the street in Lucerne, and so did the servant girl. But things happened when neither was present. And for the motive? His family lost close to everything. For what reason would he have done it?
Another theory is Joller himself, driven by financial problems, started the poltergeist rumor himself to drive the price for the house he was about to lose down. A prank that went too far. The problem with this theory though, would he really have tormented his family and household to this extent? Also, to drive down the house price would also backfire when he had to sell it. Fact was, the family ended up suffering tragically from the whole ordeal.
The Spirit of Veronika Gut
But what about the tragedy of Veronika Gut? Could her spirit have something to do with the haunting as many posed as an explanation? Already having lost her eldest son when he was fighting the French, it was a huge family tragedy. Joller himself gave no notion in his sources that he believed this was the story behind the haunting.
There were however several theories that it was earthbound spirits that wanted attention from the family living in the house, and Veronika was one of the main suspects haunting the Joller House. According to this theory, she was in fact a militant nationalist and Joller’s liberal politics was the cause of her haunting and wanting to bring him on a more righteous path in her opinion.
There is also the theory about the haunting being because of how close in age Joller’s daughters started to be to Veronika’s daughters, and that this is what released the haunting.
This seems to be the holding theory of the family itself as well. When a documentary crew went to Rome to meet Riccardo Joller, Melchior’s great-grandson, he showed a spirit drawing og Veronika they had made.
Then there were the secret manuscripts allegedly existing and explaining the whole thing. An editor from Zurich told about her father and how he had talked with some of the great grandchildren of Joller. Apparently, Nicolao Joller, who was Alfred’s grandson, was in possession of a secret manuscript, detailing the exact reason of why the events of the Joller house had taken place. On the cover of the manuscript it read in the local Roman dialect: “for the family only.” But the actual contents of the manuscript were never published publicly, and there is no actual proof that it even exists.
The Suspicion of Teenage Daughters
One part of poltergeist’s hauntings, is the presence of teenage girls, in their early prepubescent. We see it from the Veronika case in Spain or the Enfield poltergeist in England from more modern times to the case of the Fox sisters in America starting the spiritual movement.
Exactly why do so many poltergeist stories have young girls in the midst of it? Some point to sexual exploitation or other dysfunctional dynamics within the household that would solve itself when they left Stans and started their independent lives outside of the family home. This theory is that the supposed poltergeist haunting is some sort of cry for help and is about unsolved trauma that the girls twist into a spiritual haunting to cope with their lives.
The fact is that we simply don’t know what really happened those years inside of the Joller house.
Legacy of the Joller Poltergeist
Today, little remains to mark the site where terror once held sway. The Joller House in Stans was demolished on February 23 in 2010 and a high rise shopping center was built in its place opposite the Länderpark.
Demolition of the Joller House: The haunted house on Veronika-Gut-Weg in Stans was demolished on February 23, 2010./Source: Corinne Glanzmann
Whether the product of unresolved grief, repressed secrets, or something far older and more malevolent, the story of the Joller House poltergeist endures as one of Switzerland’s most unsettling ghostly mysteries — a chilling reminder that even in idyllic mountain towns, darkness can take hold.
Said to be the mass burial place for the dead Irish Independence rebels from 1798, the Croppie’s Acre in Dublin is said to be haunted by their lingering souls.
Once a green paradise, the legend says the fairies protected the people of Val Gerina valley in the Swiss alps. Driven by greed to impress a woman however, the son meant to continue the tradition and friendship with the fairies, brought it all down.
Haunted by its former Fellows, Trinity College in Dublin is said to be filled with eerie spirits where even the bell tolls after dark when the shadows take over campus.
A true story morphed into a fairytale, the life and death of the French Countess Marie Louise St. Simon-Montleart has become the stuff of legends. Buried in the forest close to Wildegg Castle in Switzerland, it is said she is haunting the castle and the forest, her sanctuary.
Crossing through the Jura Mountains in Switzerland, an urban legend about the ghost of a lady in white is said to have haunted the Belchen Tunnel and was widely known and written about in the 80s. Question is, is she still haunting the tunnel?
After falling to his death trying to escape the debtor’s prison, The Marshalsea Barracks in Dublin, it is said the ghost of Pat Doyle is haunting the remaining walls of the ruins.
Planted to mark the mass grave of plague victims, the Linden Tree in the Aargau valley in Switzerland has become a famous landmark. In the night though, it is said that the ghosts buried underneath it crawls from the ground to haunt as a warning for any oncoming tragedies.
A rebel and freedom fighter for Irish independence is said to haunt his favorite pub, The Brazen Head in Dublin, where it is said he plotted his fight against the English.
The black cat in European folklore is shrouded in mystery and magical lore. From the old parts of Bern, ghost stories of ghostly black cats linger in the shadows, reminding about the old fear the feline specter used to hold over people.
Mirroring the famous Dance Macabre mural that used to hang on the walls near the Predigerkirche in Basel, it is said that plague victims were buried in the patch of grass outside of the church. Legend has it that when the city needs it, the dead will rise from it in a macabre procession, as a warning of an oncoming disaster.
Where history whispers and shadows reign, the Rathaus in Bern is said to be haunted by a myriad of ghosts. Who are the ghosts lingering in the City Hall after dark?
In the shadowy annals of vampire lore, where myths and reality intertwine, one woman’s haunting tale stands out— Sarah Ellen Roberts, an unassuming woman from Blackburn, England, who would become immortalized as Dracula’s Bride in the unlikeliest of places: Pisco, Peru.
In the long, eerie catalog of vampire lore — from the misted Carpathians to the cobbled streets of Whitby — few tales are quite as strange, or as oddly international, as that of Sarah Ellen Roberts, a woman born in Blackburn, England in 1872, who died in obscurity yet rose to legend as Dracula’s Bride in Peru.
On June 9 in 1993, her 80th death anniversary was in Pisco, Peru where she is buried. The locals feared she would return for her vengeance. Pregnant women fled the town, hundreds of anti-vampire kits were sold and street vendors were selling t-shirts and keyrings as television and radio broadcasted it all live. They were all fearing and awaiting the return of Dracula’s bride.
The Life and Sinister Reputation of Sarah Ellen Roberts
Not much is historically documented about Sarah Ellen’s early life in Blackburn. She was born Sarah Ellen Gargett and was born March 6 in 1872 in Burnley. She was one of four children of the coachman, William Gargett and Catherine Abbott.
She grew up in Blackburn, England and married John Pryce Roberts in St. John’s Church in 1892, both working as weavers, raising their two sons, Frank and William born in 1892 and 93 on Bolton Road in Blackburn.
Sara Roberts: Before Sarah became a vampire legend, it seems like she lived a normal working class life in England. Here, a weaver working a mechanical loom in Home mill at the end of 19th century.
Seemingly a humble and innocent life, so how in the world did she end up buried in Peru with a reputation of being a vampire?
John had a brother who left to work as a manager at Nab-lane in a weaving mill in Lima, Peru in 1901. He must have been successful as he traveled first class back. John himself went to Peru at least two times in 1912 and 1913. He brought Sarah with him and left their children in England with Sarah’s aunt, Lily Gargett. But Sarah would never return to England the last trip they took.
On the 9th of June in 1913 she died of unknown cause in Pisco, Peru, 200 km south of Lima. Her obituary in the Northern Daily Telegraph simply read:
On the 9th inst., at Pisco, Peru, Sarah Ellen, the beloved wife of John P. Roberts (formerly of 25 Isherwood-street, Blackburn.) In her 42nd year. Deeply regretted.
John Roberts returned to England and ended his day as a weaver, opening a grocer’s shop he ran until his death in October 1925.
The Legends Of Sarah
As mentioned, little is known about her life except the skeleton we can read about through wedding dates in the church register or the census records. but what lingers in local memory is the rumor that she dabbled in the dark arts. Accusations of witchcraft, murder, and even vampirism followed her like a shadow. Folklore claims she was suspected of being one of the undead — a creature cursed to drain the life from others in order to sustain her own. In Victorian England, where superstition clung tight even as the Industrial Revolution steamed ahead, such rumors could be a death sentence.
According to the rumors, Sarah was sentenced to death in East Lancashire after the accusations of her being a witch, vampire and murderer. Legend has it that, in 1913, she was chained, nailed inside a lead-lined coffin, and left to die. And as she died, she vowed to return for revenge.
England, it is said, refused her burial — no hallowed ground would accept the restless corpse of a vampire. Desperate to find his wife a final resting place, John allegedly wandered the globe for four years with her corpse, encountering refusal after refusal from fearful communities in all of Europe as well as Chile and Argentina. A sailor told him to go to Peru as “everyone knows Peru is the land of witches.”. It wasn’t until he reached Pisco, a small port town in Peru, that he found a people willing — or perhaps sufficiently unaware — to allow her burial. There he bought a tomb for five pound and laid his wife to rest.
Thus, Sarah Ellen was laid to rest in Cementerio General de Pisco, far from the foggy moors of England. But death would not be the end of her story
The Night of Dread and Disappointment
As midnight approached on 9th June 1993, nearly one thousand people gathered around Sarah Ellen’s grave. The date of her resurrection had been from Cuban talk show host, Cristina Saralegui on her program, a self proclaimed vampire specialist.
Cristina Show 1992 Intro:Was this how the world was introduced to the legend of Sarah?
Some came out of morbid curiosity, others driven by genuine dread. As mentioned, pregnant women fled the town as they were afraid that her spirit would be reborn as their child.
The crowd included witch doctors and spiritualists, eager to ward off whatever horror might claw its way from the earth.
The grave was doused with holy water and protective rites were performed, sprinkling flower petals as well as blood on her grave, welcoming her back. Local shamans chanted, crosses were brandished, and prayers filled the night air thick with incense and anticipation as people had armed themselves with crucifixes, holy water, stakes and garlic. Midnight struck, and… nothing.
The grave remained undisturbed. No spectral figure emerged. No pallid hand tore through the soil. The townsfolk, some relieved, others a little disappointed, slowly dispersed into the night and the broadcasters packed up their equipment with little to report on.
Local witch doctors claimed victory over evil; skeptics chalked it up to superstition’s last gasp. In 2007, a massive earthquake hit Peru that killed hundreds and destroyed a lot of the city, including the cemetery that her grave was. Her grave was undamaged and people speculated that this was a sign that she really held powers, even in her grave. Even today, some believe the rituals merely postponed the inevitable, and that Sarah Ellen Roberts still waits.
Fact and fiction blur at the edges of Sarah Ellen’s tale. Historical records of her existence are scant, and little in England officially documents the accusations against her. There were also versions of the legend where she was one of the three “brides of Dracula”, together with the sisters Andrea and Erica. They were executed in Blackburn and buried by John Roberts in Mexico and Hungary or Panama, as the legend varies. This thing comes from the Cuban TV personality. The question is: was the tale even a thing in Peru before this broadcast?
According to this variation, she and her sisters had gone to Transylvania and met Dracula himself who had seduced her and made her his lover, biting her and making her a vampire.
Another tale was that she gave birth to a son as soon as she arrived in Peru and died six days later. After this, stories about a pale foreign woman were seen in town as she fed on the blood of animals and young children. This creature was known as the Vampira de Inglaterra.
Yet in Peru, her grave remains real, and her legend persists.
Over the years, her story has appeared in Peruvian newspapers, paranormal documentaries, and folklore anthologies.
Final Thoughts from the Crypt
In the grand pantheon of vampire legends, Sarah Ellen Roberts stands out not for bloody deeds or midnight prowls, but for the sheer, gothic absurdity of her story: an accused vampire from industrial England buried in coastal Peru, with an apocalyptic prophecy attached for good measure.
Historians have several times debunked the story, although tourism still thrives on it. If it was so that she was convicted for witchcraft, there would only be a prison sentence as well as more press like the last woman convicted for witchcraft in the UK made.
What happened when she died? Was it a traveling man with his wife in a coffin, trying to get her back to England that gave rise to the myths? Was it something that happened before she left for South America that gave a lingering impression on those who crossed her path?
Her grandchildren were unaware of the vampire legends that existed about her until 1993 and that the legend had more with a 60% spike in tourism in the Pisco area after the incident. Some believe that she was no vampire at all, but a saint, leaving her flowers on her grave and asking for miracles today.
And while she didn’t rise in 1993, one can’t help but wonder if perhaps — in true vampiric fashion — she’s just biding her time.
Said to be the mass burial place for the dead Irish Independence rebels from 1798, the Croppie’s Acre in Dublin is said to be haunted by their lingering souls.
Once a green paradise, the legend says the fairies protected the people of Val Gerina valley in the Swiss alps. Driven by greed to impress a woman however, the son meant to continue the tradition and friendship with the fairies, brought it all down.
Haunted by its former Fellows, Trinity College in Dublin is said to be filled with eerie spirits where even the bell tolls after dark when the shadows take over campus.
A true story morphed into a fairytale, the life and death of the French Countess Marie Louise St. Simon-Montleart has become the stuff of legends. Buried in the forest close to Wildegg Castle in Switzerland, it is said she is haunting the castle and the forest, her sanctuary.
Crossing through the Jura Mountains in Switzerland, an urban legend about the ghost of a lady in white is said to have haunted the Belchen Tunnel and was widely known and written about in the 80s. Question is, is she still haunting the tunnel?
After falling to his death trying to escape the debtor’s prison, The Marshalsea Barracks in Dublin, it is said the ghost of Pat Doyle is haunting the remaining walls of the ruins.
Planted to mark the mass grave of plague victims, the Linden Tree in the Aargau valley in Switzerland has become a famous landmark. In the night though, it is said that the ghosts buried underneath it crawls from the ground to haunt as a warning for any oncoming tragedies.
A rebel and freedom fighter for Irish independence is said to haunt his favorite pub, The Brazen Head in Dublin, where it is said he plotted his fight against the English.
The black cat in European folklore is shrouded in mystery and magical lore. From the old parts of Bern, ghost stories of ghostly black cats linger in the shadows, reminding about the old fear the feline specter used to hold over people.
Mirroring the famous Dance Macabre mural that used to hang on the walls near the Predigerkirche in Basel, it is said that plague victims were buried in the patch of grass outside of the church. Legend has it that when the city needs it, the dead will rise from it in a macabre procession, as a warning of an oncoming disaster.
Where history whispers and shadows reign, the Rathaus in Bern is said to be haunted by a myriad of ghosts. Who are the ghosts lingering in the City Hall after dark?
For decades, sightings of a strange humanoid were seen wandering the Swiss forests in Maules. Clad in camouflage and masked by an antique gas mask, the figure now known as Le Loyon or the Ghost of Maule turned into an urban legend.
Deep in the dense, brooding woods of the Gruyère region in western and French speaking part of Switzerland lies the village of Maules, a sleepy Swiss hamlet surrounded by pastoral hills and ancient forest with around 350 people.
Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Switzerland
For over a decade, locals and hikers whispered uneasily of something else among the trees: a tall, silent figure in a gas mask known only as Le Loyon. Shrouded in mystery and dread, this eerie entity became one of Switzerland’s most unnerving urban legends, known today as The Ghost of Maules.
The Gruyère District in western Switzerland: known for its rolling green hills, medieval towns, and namesake cheese, also holds a darker, more mysterious side. Its dense forests—often cloaked in mist—are steeped in legends passed down through generations. Here is the landscape of the woods near the Château de Gruyères.
A Forest Stalker in Camouflage
Le Loyon was first reported in the early 2000s where most sources state 2003 as the beginning of it all. But there are those who claim that the sightings of Le Loyon goes back to the late 1990s by residents and ramblers who ventured into the Maules woods near Sâles, in the Canton of Fribourg.
Witnesses described the figure as well over six feet tall, clothed in an olive-green or camouflage military-style boilersuit or gimp suit, draped in a dark cloak, and most disturbingly, wearing an antiquated gas mask that obscured the entire head.
This combination of industrial, military, and being faceless struck terror into those who glimpsed it. The mask, resembling those worn in chemical warfare, gave Le Loyon the unsettling appearance of something not entirely human. It never spoke. It never chased. But it watched.
It was most often spotted along a particular forest path known to locals and most often on Sundays. Reports recounted how the figure would appear in the distance and then vanish into the foliage without a trace when spotted, almost as the Ghost of Maule wanted to remain a secret.
In one of the first reported sightings, a local woman claimed to have seen Le Loyon in June, picking flowers on a clearing close to the trail, startled when it was seen and clutching the bouquet of wild flowers. According to the woman, Le Loyon dropped the flowers and fled. Who was the most frightened?
A Community Gripped by Fear by Le Loyon
Although Le Loyon never displayed aggression, fear spread through the area. Parents told children to stay away from the woods. Hikers changed their routes.
For around two decades, there were at least twelve encounters with Le Loyon. As Marianne Descloux said when she encountered Le Loyon: “It was a rainy Sunday. He had a hood, a dark pilgrim and his gas mask. What can go through his head? I don’t know, but it was impressive and unpleasant. I hope I never run into him again.”
The local authorities were contacted several times, but without concrete evidence of a crime, there was little they could do. Some speculated Le Loyon was simply a hermit with a strange sense of fashion. Some believed the figure was a mentally ill recluse; others insisted it was a supernatural being — perhaps a spirit of war, a forest warden cursed by time, or even a personified trauma from Switzerland’s hidden past.
The Photo That Made It Real
Everything changed in 2013 when a photograph of Le Loyon was captured and published in a regional paper, Le Matin. Taken by an anonymous hiker, the image shows the eerie figure standing alone on a woodland path, facing slightly away from the camera, cloaked and masked exactly as described.
‘I came across him near the marches,’ said the unnamed photographer who tracked it down. ‘I approached him up to a dozen metres away.’ ‘He had a military cape, boots and an army gas mask – an antique type, I think. He measured more than 1.90m. He stared at me then turned its back on me and left in silence.’
The photo quickly went viral giving hard proof to a tale many had dismissed as folklore or just seeing things. The local community was now more afraid than ever. Women and children didn’t want to venture into the woodlands by themselves.
Not long after the photo’s release, another strange discovery was made: Le Loyon’s clothes and gas mask were found neatly folded and left in the forest along with a disturbing note.
The Final Message from The Ghost of Maules
According to Le Matin, the note contained a cryptic and bitter farewell titled: “Death Certificate and Testament of the Ghost of Maules” and was first posted on a local bulletin..
In it, the author expressed anger at being hunted by the media and misunderstood by society, claiming that the forest was once a sanctuary — a place of peace — that had been taken from them by fear and judgment. The message hinted at emotional turmoil and deep loneliness but offered no identity. The way it worded the letter also left someone believe it was a suicide note.
Death certificate and testament of the Phantom of Maules (Translated into English from French)
Dear nickname Patrick du Matin, not only are you a moron but you are above all an assassin.
You murdered a very harmless being, who found, in his walks, a real therapy of happiness, a cerebral resourcing allowing him to face the responsibilities and the vicissitudes of his “normal” life and he had some!
The ghost cannot explain this happiness, but you do not seem to know Sacher-Masoch; you will discover that it takes everything to make a world.
Then you are an assassin of freedoms.
To hear you, we find ourselves in the Middle Ages, at the time of the witches. Why don’t you rise up against the little toads, helmets and hoods, dressed in leather, who backfire on their motorcycles, in these same forests, them in violation!
Do they take the time to meditate in front of the little Oratory, to ask for a better world? I terrorize children, make me laugh! Why are they not terrified by the horrors and the crimes, very real these, that they see on television, in the media?
Who is in charge of setting the Tolerance and Freedom button in this company? These beautiful notions benefit more dealers, pimps, burglars, rapists and hooligans!
Switzerland is small, anything that is not in accordance with the garden gnome must be eradicated. I thought, during these years, while I was always left alone, until you, that these feelings were evolving, you give me the opposite proof, unfortunately.
The Phantom disappears, the risk of a Beast hunt is too great. It will come back to haunt the narrow minds of your kind, for ultimately a ghost never dies.
To the amiable walker or mushroomer who will discover my tinsel: Deliver this letter to Mr. Syndic or Vice-Syndic, or even to a journalist, capable however of discussing Freedom and Tolerance.
Since the clothing and note were found, no further sightings of Le Loyon have been reported. The legend, however, has only grown.
Specter or Sad Soul?
To this day, no one knows for sure who — or what — Le Loyon was. Was it a reclusive individual driven to hide behind a mask for personal or psychological reasons? A mentally ill woman, a gigantic man or perhaps a strange survivalist or someone suffering from a skin condition?
Perhaps it was simply a person enjoying dressing up or playing a prank? A 4chan thread on the board /r9k/ appears to have Le Loyon themself posting. The thread was about an anonymous poster who was contemplating doing scary things in public for fun, which ‘Le Loyon’ posted in talking about what they did, Another poster quickly recognised it looking eerily similar to that of Le Loyon legend. If the poster said the truth, ‘Le Loyon’ would simply be a bored person looking for some fun.
As time progressed and the legend grew, some started to believe that the Ghost of Maule could be something far stranger than a person enjoying dressing up. Was it something closer to a ghost, or guardian of the woods, or some sort of other, specter wrapped in humanity’s forgotten horrors?
Said to be the mass burial place for the dead Irish Independence rebels from 1798, the Croppie’s Acre in Dublin is said to be haunted by their lingering souls.
Once a green paradise, the legend says the fairies protected the people of Val Gerina valley in the Swiss alps. Driven by greed to impress a woman however, the son meant to continue the tradition and friendship with the fairies, brought it all down.
Haunted by its former Fellows, Trinity College in Dublin is said to be filled with eerie spirits where even the bell tolls after dark when the shadows take over campus.
A true story morphed into a fairytale, the life and death of the French Countess Marie Louise St. Simon-Montleart has become the stuff of legends. Buried in the forest close to Wildegg Castle in Switzerland, it is said she is haunting the castle and the forest, her sanctuary.
Crossing through the Jura Mountains in Switzerland, an urban legend about the ghost of a lady in white is said to have haunted the Belchen Tunnel and was widely known and written about in the 80s. Question is, is she still haunting the tunnel?
After falling to his death trying to escape the debtor’s prison, The Marshalsea Barracks in Dublin, it is said the ghost of Pat Doyle is haunting the remaining walls of the ruins.
Planted to mark the mass grave of plague victims, the Linden Tree in the Aargau valley in Switzerland has become a famous landmark. In the night though, it is said that the ghosts buried underneath it crawls from the ground to haunt as a warning for any oncoming tragedies.
A rebel and freedom fighter for Irish independence is said to haunt his favorite pub, The Brazen Head in Dublin, where it is said he plotted his fight against the English.
The black cat in European folklore is shrouded in mystery and magical lore. From the old parts of Bern, ghost stories of ghostly black cats linger in the shadows, reminding about the old fear the feline specter used to hold over people.
Mirroring the famous Dance Macabre mural that used to hang on the walls near the Predigerkirche in Basel, it is said that plague victims were buried in the patch of grass outside of the church. Legend has it that when the city needs it, the dead will rise from it in a macabre procession, as a warning of an oncoming disaster.
Where history whispers and shadows reign, the Rathaus in Bern is said to be haunted by a myriad of ghosts. Who are the ghosts lingering in the City Hall after dark?
The Vampire of Croglin Grange was passed down as an actual true story told and published. But what was the truth behind this vampire story, and was there really any truth to it?
Tucked within the pastoral landscapes of Cumbria, England, the quiet village of Croglin once played host to one of Britain’s eeriest and most unsettling vampire legends — a story that has chilled listeners for well over a century. Known as The Vampire of Croglin Grange, this tale was first popularized in the 19th century, yet its setting and sinister details evoke much older European revenant lore.
Croglin is a quiet picturesque fellside village between the Pennines and the River Eden. Because of its proximity to the Scottish borders, the village was often raided by the Border Reivers in the 15th century. Though historians debate its authenticity, the story’s sinister atmosphere and eerie specifics have earned it a place among England’s most famous vampire legends.
The Account That Sparked the Legend
The legend was first widely shared by Augustus Hare in his 1896 book The Story of My Life, his autobiography. The story was related by a certain Captain Fisher. The Fisher family were long-time residents of the region, and presented it as a genuine family incident that took place in Cumberland around 14 miles south east of Carlisle and not far from the Scottish border. After moving down to Surrey, the Fishers had let the Grange out.
The Night the Vampire Came
According to Hare’s account, in the early 19th century, a brother and sister — Amelia, Edward, and Michael Cranswell — rented a remote country house known as Croglin Grange between 1875 and 1876. The house was charming but isolated, surrounded by open fields and ancient churchyards. Though Hare doesn’t name them in his story, later sources give their surname as Cranswell. And while Hare doesn’t give a date, it’s been assumed they occupied the house at some point in the 1870s, as this was when the Fishers moved out.
One particularly hot summer’s evening, the siblings retired to bed, leaving their windows open to the night air. As darkness settled, Amelia Cranswell lay in bed beneath the glow of a full moon when she noticed a pair of glittering eyes peering through her window. It was described as having a brown face and flaming eyes. Transfixed with horror, she watched as a thin, shriveled figure with unnaturally long fingers crept closer.
The creature deftly unlatched the window, slipped inside, and lunged at Amelia, biting into her neck and drawing blood. Paralyzed with terror, she managed to let out a blood-curdling scream as the creature fed. Her cries summoned Edward and Michael, who burst into the room and chased the attacker away — though not before seeing it flee toward the churchyard.
A Grim Pursuit
The next morning, the brothers searched the grounds but found no trace of the intruder. Fearing for their sister’s life, they insisted she travel to recover elsewhere and they went to Switzerland. Several months later, Amelia returned, and despite lingering fears, resumed life at Croglin Grange.
But on another moonlit night, the creature returned — this time, the brothers were ready. Michael and Edward, armed with pistols, pursued the shriveled, man-like figure across the moonlit fields to the old churchyard, where it disappeared into a crypt belonging to a long-dead local family.
The next day, accompanied by local villagers, the brothers opened the vault. Inside, they found a mummified, grotesque corpse — remarkably intact — with fresh blood on its lips. The body was swiftly burned or, in some versions, a stake was driven through its heart before it was incinerated, bringing an end to the terror that had plagued Croglin Grange.
Fact, Fiction, or Folklore?
Skeptics have long debated the historical accuracy of the Croglin Vampire story. Some argue it’s a Victorian gothic fiction piece cleverly presented as oral history. Others point out that while Croglin is a real place, no definitive records corroborate the events described by Augustus Hare.
The story was revisited in 1919 when Montague Summers republished it together with Varney the Vampire, saying it should be dismissed as folklore. He found no evidence that Croglin Grange ever existed. Most likely it was based on Croglin Low Hall even though there was no nearby chapel.
Folklorists suggest that the tale fits within a wider tradition of revenant lore in northern England and Scotland — stories of the dead returning from their graves to drink the blood of the living, particularly during plague years. The creature’s withered, ancient appearance also aligns more with old European vampire myths than the suave, aristocratic blood-drinkers popularized by later gothic fiction.
Francis Clive-Ross gave some more insight in a 1963 article for the journal Tomorrow, Clive-Ross stated he’d discovered information that might lend some truth at least to the setting of Fisher’s tale. Clive-Ross found out that Croglin Low Hall had actually been known as Croglin Grange until the beginning of the 18th century and that it really used to be a chapel nearby. Croglin residents, however, told him that the incident hadn’t occurred in the 1870s, but rather way back in the 1680s.
As it turned out, the Fisher’s had actually been tenants back then, and it was the Towry family owning it and that the story most likely came from them. Some linked the bat-like creature from a local story of the grave of a local priest. Some speculate that what the woman actually saw was an owl, or perhaps an escaped monkey from the circus. Some even suggest that it is a story about the trauma from the Civil War, everything to not recognize the possibility of a vampiric creature stalking the locals.
Even so, there is a window at Croglin Low Hall that is believed to be the window the vampire showed himself. It is now bricked up and festooned with a lucky horseshoe. As a protection, just in case.
Said to be the mass burial place for the dead Irish Independence rebels from 1798, the Croppie’s Acre in Dublin is said to be haunted by their lingering souls.
Once a green paradise, the legend says the fairies protected the people of Val Gerina valley in the Swiss alps. Driven by greed to impress a woman however, the son meant to continue the tradition and friendship with the fairies, brought it all down.
Haunted by its former Fellows, Trinity College in Dublin is said to be filled with eerie spirits where even the bell tolls after dark when the shadows take over campus.
A true story morphed into a fairytale, the life and death of the French Countess Marie Louise St. Simon-Montleart has become the stuff of legends. Buried in the forest close to Wildegg Castle in Switzerland, it is said she is haunting the castle and the forest, her sanctuary.
Crossing through the Jura Mountains in Switzerland, an urban legend about the ghost of a lady in white is said to have haunted the Belchen Tunnel and was widely known and written about in the 80s. Question is, is she still haunting the tunnel?
After falling to his death trying to escape the debtor’s prison, The Marshalsea Barracks in Dublin, it is said the ghost of Pat Doyle is haunting the remaining walls of the ruins.
Planted to mark the mass grave of plague victims, the Linden Tree in the Aargau valley in Switzerland has become a famous landmark. In the night though, it is said that the ghosts buried underneath it crawls from the ground to haunt as a warning for any oncoming tragedies.
A rebel and freedom fighter for Irish independence is said to haunt his favorite pub, The Brazen Head in Dublin, where it is said he plotted his fight against the English.
The black cat in European folklore is shrouded in mystery and magical lore. From the old parts of Bern, ghost stories of ghostly black cats linger in the shadows, reminding about the old fear the feline specter used to hold over people.
Mirroring the famous Dance Macabre mural that used to hang on the walls near the Predigerkirche in Basel, it is said that plague victims were buried in the patch of grass outside of the church. Legend has it that when the city needs it, the dead will rise from it in a macabre procession, as a warning of an oncoming disaster.
Where history whispers and shadows reign, the Rathaus in Bern is said to be haunted by a myriad of ghosts. Who are the ghosts lingering in the City Hall after dark?
After jumping from a balcony in New Orleans, a woman claimed the hosthad tried to bite her. After searching his house, police found blood and bloodstained clothes from every time period. Who was this Jacques St. Germain, dubbed the Vampire of New Orleans? And what was the connection to a mysterious immortal aristocrat from Europe?
In a city overflowing with ghost stories, grisly murders, and old-world superstition, few legends endure like that of Jacques St. Germain, the mysterious 20th-century aristocrat believed by some to be an immortal vampire stalking the streets of New Orleans’ French Quarter.
His story intertwines with the rich, eerie folklore of the city — a place where fact and legend blur in the mist rising from ancient cobblestones. But before he became the legendary vampire of New Orleans, he was the immortal aristocrat of Europe who dined with kings and queens and watched empires rise and fall.
French Quarter: A view of historic buildings in New Orleans, reminiscent of the eerie tales surrounding Jacques St. Germain, the city’s legendary vampire and the French Quarter where it is said he roams.
A Familiar, Yet Ageless Name of the Count of St. Germain
To understand how the vampire legend took root, we have to backtrack to the old country who the New Orleans vampire was thought to be. The origins of Jacques St. Germain’s legend trace back to an 18th-century European figure, The Count of St. Germain, a nobleman, alchemist, and alleged immortal who appeared in courts across Europe for decades without ever seeming to age.
He really was a real man at the European royal courts, but his life and identity was a mystery, even to his peers. He ate at the dinner with kings and queens, philosophers like Voltaire, musicians like Mozart and historians like Casanova. Known for his dazzling charisma, impossible wealth, and claims of ancient wisdom, the Count of St. Germain vanished from records in the late 1700s — though some say he never died.
Count of St. Germain: This mysterious person is largely thought to be a prince of Transylvania, hiding his identity for political protection all his life. Although many speculations have been made, he still remains a mystery.
His background seems shrouded in mystery as well. He was born maybe in 1691 or in the early 1700s. Perhaps by then, he was already centuries old by then. He was perhaps from Spain, Italy or Poland, and his real name is not known as St. Germain’s refusal to give his true name, except maybe to the King of France, Louis the XV as he kept him close at his court. He knew many languages, was a skilled musician, chemist and alchemist. So much so that some believed that he had found the way to an immortal life.
The renowned historian Giacomo Girolamo Casanova wrote of St. Germain in his memoir: “This extraordinary man, intended by nature to be the king of impostors and quacks, would say in an easy, assured manner that he was three hundred years old, that he knew the secret of the Universal Medicine, that he possessed a mastery over nature, that he could melt diamonds, professing himself capable of forming, out of ten or twelve small diamonds, one large one of the finest water without any loss of weight. All this, he said, was a mere trifle to him. Notwithstanding his boastings, his bare-faced lies, and his manifold eccentricities, I cannot say I thought him offensive. In spite of my knowledge of what he was and in spite of my own feelings, I thought him an astonishing man as he was always astonishing me.”
At the Royal Court: The Count of St. Germain knew a lot of the inner circle at the royal court in France. Here, pictured a reading of Voltaire’s L’Orphelin de la Chine (a tragedy about Ghengis Khan and his sons, published in 1755), in the salon of Madame Geoffrin
Already then he claimed to be centuries old and sold women liquids that supposedly would make them younger and stop the aging process. He would not be seen eating anything, but only drinking this mysterious tea. He claimed to have had conversations with Cleopatra and the Queen of Sheba and been present at countless historical milestones like the council of Nicea and the wedding in Cana when he turned water into wine. He was also rumored to be involved in helping Catherine the Great seize the throne, being employed by the French King although speculations about him being a spy were ever present.
The Transylvanian Prince Theory: Prince Ferenc Rákóczi II (1676–1735) was a Hungarian nobleman who played a significant role for independence from Habsburg rule. Despite his efforts, the uprising ultimately failed, leading Rákóczi into exile in France. Some speculate that Count of st. Germain was one of his sons with a hidden identity for his protection.
At a party at the manor of Madame de Pompadour, who was the mistress of the king of France in 1760, Countess von Gregory approached him. She thought he was the son of a man she had known in 1710, but discovered that it was the same man, and he hadn’t aged a bit. A French ambassador from Venice called Rameau testified that he had known St. Germain in 1710 and that he had still looked like a man in his fifties.
In a letter from Horace Walpole, the 4th Earl of Oxford, he describes Comte St. Germain with: “An odd man, who goes by the name of Comte St. Germain. He had been here these two years, and will not tell who he is, or whence, but professes that he does not go by his right name. He sings, plays on the violin wonderfully, composes, is mad, and not very sensible. He is called an Italian, a Spaniard, a Pole; a somebody that married a great fortune in Mexico, and ran away with her jewels to Constantinople, a priest, a fiddler, a vast nobleman. The Prince of Wales has had unsatiated curiosity about him, but in vain.”
In 1779 he moved to Germany and spent time with Prince Karl of Hesse-Kassel. He said he was 88 years old and the son of Prince Ragoczy of Transylvania, who had lost his throne. Some have claimed him to be his youngest son born in Bohemia and that his parents were Prince Franz-Leopold Ragoczy, of Transylvania and Princess Charlotte Amalia of Hesse-Wahnfried. Then he was placed as an infant under the care of the last Medici family, Gian Gastone.
According to records, he died February 27 in 1784, but there were sightings of him long before he reached New Orleans. But did he really die? According to more than one source, he kept appearing throughout different times, never aging at all.
The Active Afterlife of the Count of St. Germain
Some would even venture that Comte de St. Germain was not his first life, and that he had been alive long before the 1700s, perhaps even since the time of Christ. Historian and philosopher Voltair allegedly said about him: “He is a man who knows everything and who never dies.”
In 1785 he was known to reside in Germany, befriending Anton Mesmer, the pioneer hypnotist and it was said that he had given Mesmer the ideas of it. He was also chosen as the Freemasonry representative for the annual 1785 convention. in their own records.
He went back to France after the taking of Bastille and was a counsel to Comtesse d’Adhémar who last saw him in 1822, not looking a day older. She wrote in 1821: “I have seen Saint-Germain again, each time to my amazement. I saw him when the queen [Antoinette] was murdered, on the 18th of Brumaire, on the day following the death of the Duke d’Enghien, in January, 1815, and on the eve of the murder of the Duke de Berry.”
Storming of Bastille: According to some records, Count st. Germaine appeared and told about the danger of the oncoming revolution.
Then he took on a new identity and Albert Vandam wrote: “He called himself Major Fraser, lived alone and never alluded to his family. Moreover he was lavish with money, though the source of his fortune remained a mystery to everyone. He possessed a marvelous knowledge of all the countries in Europe at all periods. His memory was absolutely incredible and, curiously enough, he often gave his hearers to understand that he had acquired his learning elsewhere than from books. Many is the time he has told me, with a strange smile, that he was certain he had known Nero, had spoken with Dante, and so on.”
The Vampire Reaches New Orleans
So how did this European aristocrat end up in New Orleans centuries later? According to the legend, by boat. In 1902, a man bearing the same name arrived in New Orleans. Like his supposed predecessor, Jacques St. Germain was described as charming, urbane, impossibly wealthy, and oddly ageless. He threw extravagant parties at his home on Royal Street, where guests marveled at the fine wines and exotic art — though curiously, no one ever saw him eat.
Jacques St. Germain knew many languages and captivated his audience with tales from hundreds of years ago, strangely with so much detail, you would almost believe he was there.
The Terrifying Incident on Royal Street
It was said Jacques St. Germain was only observed drinking what appeared to be red wine. He claimed to be a descendant of the Comte and people pointed out the physical resemblance from portraits. Some started to wonder if it could be him. He was said to be a charming womanizer, often venturing out to the French Quarter to meet young women.
The legend took a sinister turn when a young woman, invited to his home one evening, fled the house in terror. Some say that she jumped out from the second-story of his house. She was either a prostitute or one of the guests at one of his lavish parties he had invited to his balcony.
Royal Street: The iconic mall building on Royal Street in New Orleans, the street where Jacques St. Germain, the vampire of New Orleans are said to have lived. // Source: Falkue/
According to police reports, she claimed that Jacques St. Germain had tried to bite her neck to draw blood. She escaped by leaping from a second-story window and running to the authorities, battered and terrified.
When police arrived at the house, St. Germain was nowhere to be found. What they did discover was deeply disturbing: bloodstains everywhere and all of his belongings gone. There were wine bottles filled not with wine, but with human blood. The incident sent ripples through the community, and though a warrant was issued for his arrest, Jacques St. Germain was never seen again. Or… perhaps he was.
A Haunting Presence in New Orleans Lore
Since his disappearance, stories of a pale, well-dressed gentleman seen walking the French Quarter at night have persisted. There are reports about him up until the 1970s. Richard Chanfray was the man who claimed to be the Count in the 1970s.
During the 1970s, Chanfray began appearing on television, claiming to be the count and supposedly demonstrating the ability to transmute boring old lead into gold in front of an audience. However, Chanfray later died by suicide in 1983.
New Orleans: 1039-1041 Royal St. where it is said that Jacques St. Germain lived.
Witnesses describe a tall figure in old-fashioned clothing, speaking in a strange, antiquated accent, vanishing into alleyways or slipping into buildings long abandoned.
Some local historians and paranormal enthusiasts believe Jacques St. Germain to be one and the same as the immortal Count of St. Germain, relocating from Europe to America in search of fresh hunting grounds. Others remain sceptical, as there are no police reports found from the incident, and not a trace of him ever having lived on Royal Street.
Today, his supposed Royal Street residence still stands, a stop on many New Orleans ghost tours, with guides recounting the legend of the vampire aristocrat whose thirst for blood was hidden behind a facade of sophistication and charm. One of the second floor windows is bricked up, said to be the one the woman jumped from.
Whether an immortal alchemist, an old-world vampire, or simply a creation of New Orleans’ love for the macabre, Jacques St. Germain remains one of the city’s most enduringly eerie legends. If you find yourself walking Royal Street on a misty evening, keep an eye out for the elegant stranger with a pale complexion and ageless face — and if he offers you a drink, you might want to politely decline.
Said to be the mass burial place for the dead Irish Independence rebels from 1798, the Croppie’s Acre in Dublin is said to be haunted by their lingering souls.
Once a green paradise, the legend says the fairies protected the people of Val Gerina valley in the Swiss alps. Driven by greed to impress a woman however, the son meant to continue the tradition and friendship with the fairies, brought it all down.
Haunted by its former Fellows, Trinity College in Dublin is said to be filled with eerie spirits where even the bell tolls after dark when the shadows take over campus.
A true story morphed into a fairytale, the life and death of the French Countess Marie Louise St. Simon-Montleart has become the stuff of legends. Buried in the forest close to Wildegg Castle in Switzerland, it is said she is haunting the castle and the forest, her sanctuary.
Crossing through the Jura Mountains in Switzerland, an urban legend about the ghost of a lady in white is said to have haunted the Belchen Tunnel and was widely known and written about in the 80s. Question is, is she still haunting the tunnel?
After falling to his death trying to escape the debtor’s prison, The Marshalsea Barracks in Dublin, it is said the ghost of Pat Doyle is haunting the remaining walls of the ruins.
Planted to mark the mass grave of plague victims, the Linden Tree in the Aargau valley in Switzerland has become a famous landmark. In the night though, it is said that the ghosts buried underneath it crawls from the ground to haunt as a warning for any oncoming tragedies.
A rebel and freedom fighter for Irish independence is said to haunt his favorite pub, The Brazen Head in Dublin, where it is said he plotted his fight against the English.
The black cat in European folklore is shrouded in mystery and magical lore. From the old parts of Bern, ghost stories of ghostly black cats linger in the shadows, reminding about the old fear the feline specter used to hold over people.
Mirroring the famous Dance Macabre mural that used to hang on the walls near the Predigerkirche in Basel, it is said that plague victims were buried in the patch of grass outside of the church. Legend has it that when the city needs it, the dead will rise from it in a macabre procession, as a warning of an oncoming disaster.
Where history whispers and shadows reign, the Rathaus in Bern is said to be haunted by a myriad of ghosts. Who are the ghosts lingering in the City Hall after dark?
The Zurich Poltergeist was a well known haunting happening to the Pastor of Grossmünster Church in his home at Zwingliplatz in the early 1700s. For years, the family experienced torment at the hands of what they believed had to be the devil.
Some of the most intense ghost stories from Switzerland are definitely the poltergeist hauntings. One of the more famed ones turned out to be a hoax, but it left its marks on the city. Right by the most famous landmark of Zurich there was a haunted rectory that drove the Pastor and his family mad.
Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Switzerland
In a time of witch hunts, religious change and the time of enlightenment, there was a supposed poltergeist knocking on the rectory walls. What really happened inside of the haunted house, and how did this poltergeist hoax help to stop any further witch trials in the city?
The Grossmünster Church: Construction began around 1100, with the church opening around 1220. It was originally a monastery church that competed with the Fraumünster throughout the Middle Ages. Legend states that Charlemagne founded it after his horse knelt over the graves of Zurich’s patron saints, Felix, Regula, and Exuperantius, helping to establish its seniority over the Fraumünster, founded by his grandson Louis the German. Archaeological findings show a Roman burial ground at this location.
The Haunting Begins at Zwingliplatz 4
One of them is the former rectory of the Grossmünster Church called the Antistitium, at Zwingliplatz 4. An invisible madness once drove a priest to ruin at the beginning of the 18th century. Anton Klinger was living there with his family, a theologian and a few maids, working as the chief pastor of Zurich and living by the church.
It started small in July in 1701. Small bells hanging in his daughter’s bedroom started to ring without anyone touching them. The little girl was sickly and had them installed for her to communicate with them. That night, her father was out of town.
They saw that the little girl hadn’t rung any bells, leaving the grown ups confused. Then the activity increased in strength. Footsteps from the upper floors sounded like they were approaching, but when they went to inspect the strange phenomenon, no one was there.
The wife was beside herself. She became convinced that it had to be a ghost, and that the ghost was her dead son from her first marriage. He had been struck in the head by a horse’s hoof when he was in the cavalry. There was whispers about it behind because of how she inherited more than what she should have, or so they say. The maids and a relative agreed that had to be the truth.
The maids could tell that they also had heard mysterious noises the night before, when the wife was away. This caused concern among the household, also for the pastor when he came home. From that day, all three women slept in the living room.
The servants and the other women were being protected by Bernhard Wirz, the 25 year old theologian living with them and hoping for a position as a pastor. He was visiting at the time and decided to extend his visit when everything went down.
And the haunting seemed to only escalate. Furniture would mysteriously move and books would come flying from the shelves as the light would flicker. On the 28th of September the bedcovers to the wife was pulled from the bed in the middle of the night as shoes and books flew through the room.
The 9th of October, a guest at their house was smoking his tobacco pipe that was knocked right off his mouth. As he said his blessing as protection, he heard a murmuring before the ghost, looking like a cloud, rose from the floor and flew down the chimney.
In the middle of the night, doors would slam open or shut in the middle of the night, even though they checked that they had closed them properly before going to bed.
Haunted by the Murder of the Witches of Wasterkingen
After the reformation, ghosts were not really seen as the souls of the deceased anymore, but the work of the devil, and we have more demonic and poltergeist stories after the reformation in places like Zurich.
Exorcisms, amulets, or other protective mechanisms to combat ghosts were forbidden. The only permitted act was prayer to God. However, the population wanted to take active steps against the intruders because they feared them.
One of the hypothesis Klinger was working with, was that the haunting had to be the ghosts of some witches he had condemned to death that year that have been remembered as the witches of wasterkingen. Elisabeth Wysser-Rutschmann and her daughter Anna had been executed July 9 in 1701. Earlier that year in April they had been accused by neighbors of harming humans and animals with their magical powers.
After days of torture, the 24 year old Anna pleaded guilty to witchcraft and told about how her mother and aunt Anna Vogel had thought her everything. They were both sent to death by burning. Anna and Margaretha Rutchmann were beheaded before the burning, but Elizabeth was burned alive. That year, three women and a man from Wasterkingen were convicted as witches and executed.
This lingered in Anton Klinger’s head, thinking that he was haunted by the devil himself for his action towards the Witches of Wasterkingen. He wrote it all down in his diary know known as Diarium Tragediae Diabolicae.
The Living Poltergeist in the Rectory
The pastor and his wife became certain that they were in fact haunted. To catch the culprit, they sent out a watchman to put an end to it all, working on the tower of the Grossmünster. The watchmen themselves claimed to have seen something looking like a glowing will-o-the-wisp phenomenon around the house. They found nothing at first, and suddenly, the haunting abruptly just stopped after seven months.
For three years, everything went back to normal, and they started to believe that they were rid of the spirit tormenting their household. Then one December night, a huge stone came crashing down the stairs, and they knew that the haunting had started again. The stone was said to be over 20 kg. The pastor and his wife became frightened, the watchman Hans Müller became suspicious.
He had just arrived at the house, and were not easily scared or fooled. Just before the stone came tumbling down, a book had come flying from the shelves and hitting him in the back. Coincidentally, it had come from where Wirz had been standing. Also a maid was said to have thrown an apple at him in an obvious manner.
Hans Müller chose to confront the servant, and eventually, she admitted to have been behind the haunting with Wirz, helping him. After this, other maids came forth and said that they too had assisted him. Among other things they had attached strings to certain objects and made them topple over.
Why? Some say it was to conceal their nightly activities of hooking up and they were pretending that it was in fact a poltergeist wandering around the house, not them. Some say it was to drive the pastor out of the house so that he could take over. It was all dragged forth in a public court and people laughed at the details of his assistant fooling around with the maids and the priest thinking it was the devil.
For this, the theologian was tortured before being condemned and lost his head. A hoax that went too far with a punishment that went to the extremes. It was however a shift in who was accused of witchcraft, and the ridiculous backstory of it all helped making so that there were no other witches burnt in Zurich.
Said to be the mass burial place for the dead Irish Independence rebels from 1798, the Croppie’s Acre in Dublin is said to be haunted by their lingering souls.
Once a green paradise, the legend says the fairies protected the people of Val Gerina valley in the Swiss alps. Driven by greed to impress a woman however, the son meant to continue the tradition and friendship with the fairies, brought it all down.
Haunted by its former Fellows, Trinity College in Dublin is said to be filled with eerie spirits where even the bell tolls after dark when the shadows take over campus.
A true story morphed into a fairytale, the life and death of the French Countess Marie Louise St. Simon-Montleart has become the stuff of legends. Buried in the forest close to Wildegg Castle in Switzerland, it is said she is haunting the castle and the forest, her sanctuary.
Crossing through the Jura Mountains in Switzerland, an urban legend about the ghost of a lady in white is said to have haunted the Belchen Tunnel and was widely known and written about in the 80s. Question is, is she still haunting the tunnel?
After falling to his death trying to escape the debtor’s prison, The Marshalsea Barracks in Dublin, it is said the ghost of Pat Doyle is haunting the remaining walls of the ruins.
Planted to mark the mass grave of plague victims, the Linden Tree in the Aargau valley in Switzerland has become a famous landmark. In the night though, it is said that the ghosts buried underneath it crawls from the ground to haunt as a warning for any oncoming tragedies.
A rebel and freedom fighter for Irish independence is said to haunt his favorite pub, The Brazen Head in Dublin, where it is said he plotted his fight against the English.
The black cat in European folklore is shrouded in mystery and magical lore. From the old parts of Bern, ghost stories of ghostly black cats linger in the shadows, reminding about the old fear the feline specter used to hold over people.
Mirroring the famous Dance Macabre mural that used to hang on the walls near the Predigerkirche in Basel, it is said that plague victims were buried in the patch of grass outside of the church. Legend has it that when the city needs it, the dead will rise from it in a macabre procession, as a warning of an oncoming disaster.
Where history whispers and shadows reign, the Rathaus in Bern is said to be haunted by a myriad of ghosts. Who are the ghosts lingering in the City Hall after dark?
After the death of Sarah Tillinghast, the family started complaining about her coming back for them at night, draining the life out of them. The family members fall dead to consumption and thinking that Sarah was a vampire, they dug her up and burned her heart.
In the shadowy folklore of New England, where fog drifts through ancient graveyards and legends cling to weathered headstones like ivy, few tales unsettle quite like the vampire panics of the 18th and 19th centuries.
While the name Mercy Brown often takes center stage in these grim histories, she was far from the region’s first alleged vampire. Nearly a century before Mercy’s exhumation in Exeter, another tragedy gripped a Rhode Island farming family — that of Sarah Tillinghast, a young woman whose death and eerie posthumous reputation would earn her a ghostly place in America’s darkest folklore.
Exeter, Rhode Island in the 1700s
In the late 18th century, Exeter, Rhode Island was a small, isolated farming village, nestled in the wooded hills and fertile valleys of southern New England. Like much of colonial America, Exeter’s people lived in fear of both earthly and supernatural forces. Disease was an ever-present specter; outbreaks of consumption, now known as tuberculosis, were especially dreaded.
Tuberculosis was a wasting disease — one that slowly robbed its victims of their strength, appetite, and vitality. Without the medical knowledge we possess today, it seemed to New Englanders of the period that the illness spread like a curse through families. And in a world shaped by superstition, when science failed, folklore filled the void.
The Death of Sarah Tillinghast
The story of Sarah Tillinghast is shrouded in between fact, folklore and local legends. Her person has also been romanticised, but truth is, we don’t know a whole lot about who she was when she lived.
According to local lore, Sarah Tillinghast was a young woman that a source described as quiet, pious, and beloved by her family. Her description in the first written source was a comely elder daughter. How she really was like though has largely been lost to time, and now she is mostly remembered as one of the first vampires of New England.
Her father, Stukely was a prosperous farmer in the small Exeter community, living with his wife, Honor and their fourteen or twelve children. Often Sarah is said to be the eldest daughter, but she had at least five older siblings. Her father was called Snuffy Stuke because of the brown jacket he wore and made his living by selling apples from his orchard. In 1799 towards harvest season however, everything changed. It was said that Stukely had a dream where half of his apple trees in the orchard died. When he woke up, he believed it to be an ominous warning. Some sources claim that his daughter Sarah called out for him in his dream as well.
His daughter, Sarah returned home, feeling uneasy. Some embellishments of the legend claim that Sarah also had an uneasy feeling and confessed to her father that she had an ominous sense of death looming over their family. A strange claim, but not long after, Sarah herself fell ill.
She was stricken by consumption, a wasting sickness that sapped her strength and left her a ghostly wisp of her former self. Some think that she had the galloping kind, where it can be latent in your body for years before consuming the sick fast when it breaks out. Despite her family’s care, Sarah died — and, as the legend says, death didn’t end her role in the family’s misery. She was only 21 or perhaps as young as 19.
In the weeks that followed Sarah’s burial, Sarah’s sister began to feel sick. It’s not said which sister, and some sources say that it could even be her brother James, only nine years old. The family lot where they are all buried are missing some tombstones, and it’s difficult to say the exact sibling. But fact was, the disease was spreading.
According to the story, it wasn’t just the disease that terrified her — it was the whispered stories from the sickbeds. She claimed she awoke in the night to find Sarah’s ghostly figure standing by their bedsides, her cold gaze fixed upon them, her presence heavy and suffocating. She said her dead sister caused her pain as she sat on her body. As quickly as Sarah did, she died, and four more of Stukely’s children followed suit.
New England’s Vampire Superstitions
It’s important to remember that during this period, the vampire in New England folklore was not the same creature popularized by Bram Stoker or Hollywood. Instead, these were restless corpses or spirits that drained vitality from the living, usually from within their own families.
The typical signs that one of the dead was to blame included multiple deaths in a family from consumption, reports of the deceased visiting the sick, and tales of disturbing, half-preserved corpses found during exhumation. The solution? A gruesome ritual: exhume the suspected corpse, check for signs of unnatural preservation (fresh blood, ruddy cheeks, or a heart full of blood), and burn the heart or other organs believed to be causing the harm.
Cases like this were shockingly common throughout 18th- and 19th-century New England, particularly in rural communities where tuberculosis outbreaks were frequent and poorly understood.
The Exhumation of Sarah Tillinghast
Faced with death after death, and driven to desperation, Stukely Tillinghast turned to his neighbors for counsel. Together, they arrived at a grim decision: Sarah’s grave must be opened. They went to the cemetery and dug up all six children, just to make sure.
Everyone of the coffins had what they deemed normal, a decomposing and dead corpse, except for Sarah. When they exhumed her body, legend holds that it appeared unnervingly lifelike. Her eyes were open, her hair and fingernails had grown. Some versions claim her cheeks were still flushed and that a small amount of fresh blood lay at the corner of her mouth — classic folkloric signs of a vampire. Whether this detail was added by later tellers of the tale or was a genuine observation from the exhumation remains lost to history.
This was for the small farming community, proof that she was a vampire and that Sarah was to blame for the deaths in the family. To stop the deaths and end Sarah’s malevolent influence, her heart was removed and burned — the standard ritual believed to sever the undead’s grip on the living. The ashes of the heart may have been buried or scattered, though records (such as they are) do not agree on this point.
According to some versions of the story, the deaths in the Tillinghast family ceased after the ritual. Other versions suggest a few more family members succumbed before the outbreak burned itself out, as diseases often do.
Regardless, the tale of Sarah Tillinghast became etched into Rhode Island’s oral history, predating the far more famous Mercy Brown case by over a century. Both stories showcase how deeply fear and folklore entwined themselves with the harsh realities of life and death in early America.
Historical Truth or Folkloric Fiction?
Unlike the well-documented Mercy Brown incident in 1892, the case of Sarah Tillinghast is murkier. No contemporary records — such as town documents or church logs — confirm her death, exhumation, or family history. Her story has been passed down primarily through oral tradition and local legend, and most written versions appeared in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Folklorists, including Michael E. Bell, author of Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England’s Vampires, have noted how many of these vampire panic cases share similar narrative patterns: multiple family deaths, reports of supernatural visitations, an exhumation, and a grim ritual of heart-burning. Sarah Tillinghast’s legend fits neatly into this mold, whether or not the specifics are historically accurate.
And if he didn’t find the article written in 1888 by Sidney Rider, the story might have been lost.
The Forgotten Grave: Rhode Island Historical Cemetery Exter #14 in Stutley Tillinghast Lot, there are a lot of unmarked graves forgotten by time. One of them is probably Sarah Tillinghast’s.
A Forgotten Haunting
Today, Sarah Tillinghast is an obscure figure, overshadowed by more famous “vampires” like Mercy Brown. But her tale remains one of the earliest and most unsettling examples of America’s vampire folklore — a testament to how communities, gripped by grief and terror, can turn on the dead themselves in a desperate attempt to survive.
She is put to rest in the small and overgrown Rhode Island Historical Cemetery, Exeter 14, containing only 25 burials on a mossy hill. Beneath an unmarked grave of weathered stones and wind-swept grass, echoes of these old fears linger. And while the name Sarah Tillinghast may have faded from history books, her spectral legend still haunts New England’s darker corners — a chilling reminder that when science fails and death comes calling, superstition is never far behind.
So if you ever find yourself walking past an ancient graveyard in Exeter as dusk falls, listen carefully. They say some restless souls never quite stay buried.
Said to be the mass burial place for the dead Irish Independence rebels from 1798, the Croppie’s Acre in Dublin is said to be haunted by their lingering souls.
Once a green paradise, the legend says the fairies protected the people of Val Gerina valley in the Swiss alps. Driven by greed to impress a woman however, the son meant to continue the tradition and friendship with the fairies, brought it all down.
Haunted by its former Fellows, Trinity College in Dublin is said to be filled with eerie spirits where even the bell tolls after dark when the shadows take over campus.
A true story morphed into a fairytale, the life and death of the French Countess Marie Louise St. Simon-Montleart has become the stuff of legends. Buried in the forest close to Wildegg Castle in Switzerland, it is said she is haunting the castle and the forest, her sanctuary.
Crossing through the Jura Mountains in Switzerland, an urban legend about the ghost of a lady in white is said to have haunted the Belchen Tunnel and was widely known and written about in the 80s. Question is, is she still haunting the tunnel?
After falling to his death trying to escape the debtor’s prison, The Marshalsea Barracks in Dublin, it is said the ghost of Pat Doyle is haunting the remaining walls of the ruins.
Planted to mark the mass grave of plague victims, the Linden Tree in the Aargau valley in Switzerland has become a famous landmark. In the night though, it is said that the ghosts buried underneath it crawls from the ground to haunt as a warning for any oncoming tragedies.
A rebel and freedom fighter for Irish independence is said to haunt his favorite pub, The Brazen Head in Dublin, where it is said he plotted his fight against the English.
The black cat in European folklore is shrouded in mystery and magical lore. From the old parts of Bern, ghost stories of ghostly black cats linger in the shadows, reminding about the old fear the feline specter used to hold over people.
Mirroring the famous Dance Macabre mural that used to hang on the walls near the Predigerkirche in Basel, it is said that plague victims were buried in the patch of grass outside of the church. Legend has it that when the city needs it, the dead will rise from it in a macabre procession, as a warning of an oncoming disaster.
Where history whispers and shadows reign, the Rathaus in Bern is said to be haunted by a myriad of ghosts. Who are the ghosts lingering in the City Hall after dark?
An online magazine about the paranormal, haunted and macabre. We collect the ghost stories from all around the world as well as review horror and gothic media.
