When the Ghost Screams(20)

Buyer Beware!





Ghosts in the News

Clearly Heard


A TEARFUL MOTHER testified in a German court that a pair of psychics led her to her daughter’s killer, according to a January 4, 2005, edition of the Expatica Direct Newsletter, which translates German to English.

Sigrid Erbe, forty-five, told the court of her heartbreak when her sixteen-year-old daughter was murdered in June 2003. Frustrated when the killer eluded detectives, she contacted the mediums. The spirit of Susanne was apparently lingering on the other side, because she came through to the psychics and fingered her murderer.

The psychics “told me he was a Croatian man in his mid-twenties, and they told me where to look for him at a garage in Mannheim,” testified the grieving mother.

When she passed the information along to the investigators, they took it to heart and tracked down twenty-four-year-old Mario Glavic. Just as the dead girl had told the psychics, he was a Croat and employed at a Mannheim garage. Mario Glavic confessed to the murder, saying that he was drunk and on cocaine, and though he had attacked her, he had not meant for her to die. He had struck the girl with a rock in an effort to quiet her when she began to scream.

He may have silenced her for awhile, but in the end, Susanne’s voice was clearly heard.





four





Witch Hunt


I do testify that I have seen Margaret Rule in her afflictions from the invisible world, lifted up from her bed, wholly by an invisible force, a great way towards the top of the room where she lay; in her being so lifted, she had no assistance from any use of her own arms or hands, or any other part of her body, not so much as her heels touching her bed, or resting on any support whatsoever …

Witness my hand,

Samuel Aves



Samuel Aves was one of several men who signed sworn testimonies stating that they had witnessed Margaret Rule levitate. The accusation came in the wake of the 1692 Salem witch trials.

Though few people think of Boston, Massachusetts, when it comes to the infamous witch episode, it, too, suffered from the irrational worries that the Puritans forced upon Salem.

Margaret Rule was seventeen in 1693 when she was accused of being a witch in Boston.

I have a special interest in her dramatic saga, because a drop of her blood runs through my veins.

We are family.

Born nearly three centuries apart, we, of course, have never met. Yet we are bonded by a thin thread of genetics that spans time.



My first view of Boston was from a 747, my forehead pressed against the cool glass of the window, an airsickness bag clutched in my hand.

A plane full of people had just heard me be sick, and I didn’t care. With a horrible headache and a stomach that threatened to rebel again, I felt too ill to care what anyone thought.

Was it a bad sandwich from the Sea-Tac Airport, or was this an emotional response to the horrors that the city below had once inflicted upon so many people?

I had wanted to visit Boston all of my life, but now the view from the sky made my head hurt more.

The city looked brown and barren. I could not stop thinking of how frightening it must have been to be marched to the gallows. Were the accused witches sick to their stomachs, as I was now?

By the next day, my stomach had settled, and I began to appreciate the historic views that Boston offered.

I had chosen a hotel one block from the Boston Common, the haunted park where accused witches were hanged, and where ghosts are seen by visitors.

Since 1634, the people of Boston have claimed the Common as their own. The once scrubby land of rolling hills served as a place for citizens to graze their cattle. Families were limited to one cow or four sheep apiece.

The site, however, was not merely a peaceful, pastoral scene. It was a place of dark deeds—deeds sanctioned by law, but so horrible that the victims still cry for justice.

Though the Boston Common retains the basic configuration of its early days, Puritans would probably not recognize it. A spider web of paved paths cuts through the forty-plus acres. Features include a bandstand, a baseball field, and the Frog Pond, a small lake that sparkles in the sunshine.



The Boston Common may be the most haunted site in town. (Leslie Rule)

Countless couples fall in love on the Common, babies giggle with delight as they toss nuts to the squirrels, and families picnic here. Despite the happy times, tragedy still marks the environment.

Before my Margaret, there was Margaret Jones. A midwife from nearby Charlestown, she was convicted of casting a spell to kill her neighbor’s cow. On June 5, 1648, Margaret Jones was hanged on the Boston Common.



As night creeps close, the trees cast long shadows upon the Common. (Leslie Rule)

A magnificent elm tree was used for the many hangings of those of whom the Puritans did not approve. They also hung pirates and Quakers from the old tree.