While Emily is a definite candidate for a University of Maryland ghost, others whose bodies were dissected there may also be bound to the campus. Maybe the smiling child in the big bonnet and the yellow dress served medical science there.
Or maybe she was a farm girl who lived and died in the area before the school was established.
The grinning apparition has been witnessed by folks in the campus’s Rossborough Inn. One employee who worked in the 1798 brick building saw the little specter after a gust blew the window open. He peered out and saw the disembodied face smiling at him. When she next appeared, some time later, he could also see her yellow dress and apron.
Because he had kept the vision to himself, he knew he hadn’t been seeing things when another employee validated his sighting. He confided that he had seen a ghost and also described a smiling girl in a yellow dress.
Marie Mount is another spirit believed to be tied to the school. The first dean of home economics was said to be so attached to the college that she wished to stay forever.
Students in the Marie Mount Hall have reported the materialization of her spirit. Others attribute the inexplicable sound of the piano playing to her phantom fingers dancing over the ivories. It happens, they say, on stormy days. When the sky is knitted with thick gray clouds, rain slashes the windows, and the rumble of thunder rolls over the roof, Marie Mount makes music.
Does the ghost of Marie Mount haunt the University of Maryland campus? (1932 yearbook)
While her life did not end violently, there are, sadly, no shortages of tragic deaths at the old campus, and therefore, no shortage of ghosts. Perhaps closest to the campus heart, is the ghost of another woman who was the university’s very own. Nearly half a century has past since her unjust death. The students still talk about her, and it is common knowledge that she inhabits the sorority house she helped establish.
When you gaze at the friendly face of Alma Preinkert in the university’s old yearbooks, the innocence is striking. Her expression is friendly and expectant, as if she believes the future is full of good things.
The longtime registrar at the University of Maryland was popular with the students. Indeed, she must have empathized with them, as she, too, had attended the university, where she earned a master’s degree.
The old photos show no sign of a premonition of doom. And that is probably best. Even when she did sense danger near, there was nothing she could do about it. Or was there?
If Alma Preinkert could say one thing to students today, it may very well be,” Trust your gut. If you have a feeling that something is not right, listen to your instincts before it is too late.”
Indeed, countless women with close brushes with killers have confided that they avoided tragedy, because they trusted their first inkling that something was not right.
On the last night of her life, Alma knew something was not right.
Alma Preinkert smiles from the yearbook of the University of Maryland. (1932 yearbook)
It was February 28, 1954, and she and her sister, Margaret Heine, had played bridge with friends and returned to their adjacent houses in Washington, D.C., at about one a.m. Alma, fifty-eight, told Margaret of her premonition. They said goodnight, and Alma went into the house she shared with her other sister, Alvina.
Did Alma wonder if it was not safe to stay in her home that night, or did she dismiss her uneasy feelings as she slipped beneath her blankets?
We will never know, for as she slumbered, evil lurked outside her home. A burglar found a ladder in a nearby yard, placed it against Alma’s yellow clapboard house, and climbed to her second-story window.
Only an hour had passed since Alma had shared her premonition with her sister. Now, she awoke to see a man rummaging through her dresser drawers. Caught in the act, he stabbed the terrified woman. The sounds of her screams brought Alvina running to help, and she, too, was knifed. Alvina survived but Alma died.
Police soon swarmed the house and found just one small clue. It was a gold tie clasp, discovered in Alma’s room.
Detectives canvassed the neighborhood, interviewing over five hundred people. Neighbors who had heard the frantic screams admitted that they had not rushed to help, because they figured the commotion was “just an alley fight.”
Classes were suspended for Alma’s funeral. Students crowded the Memorial Chapel to mourn “Miss Preink,” the woman who had always found time to listen. Her funeral was so packed that some students were forced to stand outside in a rainstorm as they paid their respects.
Alma’s killer has yet to be named. Her unsolved murder is just one more in a staggering stack of cold cases that result in earthbound souls. And it is Alma, students whisper, who is responsible for the perplexing things that happen in a particular sorority house.