Jessica Penot's Blog, page 6
April 23, 2017
A Photographic Journey Through the Catacombs
These pictures of the catacombs are from a Spring Break trip to Paris and they hardly capture the haunting quality of the place. The arch at the entrance is translated to saying: STOP: YOU ARE ENTERING THE KINGDOM OF THE DEAD
The Catacombs of Paris have always been a source of endless fascination for me. The catacombs are a series of labrynthian tunnels that burrow beneath the city of Paris. The walls of these tunnels, or this ossuary, are covered in the bones of Paris's dead. Opened in the late 18th century, the underground cemetery became a tourist attraction on a small scale from the early 19th century, and has been open to the public on a regular basis from 1867.
The history of the catacombs starts with the booming population of Paris. As more and more people flooded this populous city, there began to be serious problems with overcrowding cementeries. Around the 12th century, this problem became more than serious. The wealthy could still afford expensive cementery plots, but the bodies of the poor were flooding the streets. As solution to this, Saints-Innocents cementery was created for the poor. The poor were buried here in less regal style that usually involved being dumped in a sack into a mass grave. This solution worked for a while and other mass burial plots for the poor were established.
However, by the 17th century even the mass graves of Saints-Innocents were overflowing and the sanitary conditions around these poor cementeries was becoming intolerable, even by 17th century standards. The bones of the older dead were exhumed and laid in piles to make room for fresh corpses. So that the cementery was laden with the unburied remains of the dead. Luckily, the government was also looking for a solution to dealing with a series of abadoned quary mines beneath the city. The solutions to the two problems came in the form of the l'Ossuaire Municipal, the official name for the catacombs.
Alexandre Lenoir first had the idea to use empty underground tunnels to the outskirts of the capital to use as the ossuary. His successor, Thiroux de Crosne, chose a place and the exhumation and transfer of all Paris' dead to the underground sepulture began in 1786. At first the catacombs were merely a place to place the bones of the dead. It wasn't until Louis-Étienne Héricart de Thury assumed responsibility for the ossuary that it became a work of art. He rearranged the skulls and bones to create symbolism within the tunnel and also added old cementery decorations to the underground mortuary to turn it into what you see within the catacombs today.
I've spent quite a bit of time on youtube today viewing videos of ghosts visitors of the catacombs have caught on tape. The list is more than lengthy and several people have caught honestly scary images of the spirits of the dead on tape in the catacombs. The stories of ghosts here are more than prolific. The place is considered to be one of the most haunted places in the world and according to http://www.hauntedamericatours.com/FRANCE.php the most haunted place in France. To learn more about the catacombs or to find out how to visit them go to http://www.catacombes-de-paris.fr/english.htm.
The Catacombs of Paris have always been a source of endless fascination for me. The catacombs are a series of labrynthian tunnels that burrow beneath the city of Paris. The walls of these tunnels, or this ossuary, are covered in the bones of Paris's dead. Opened in the late 18th century, the underground cemetery became a tourist attraction on a small scale from the early 19th century, and has been open to the public on a regular basis from 1867.
The history of the catacombs starts with the booming population of Paris. As more and more people flooded this populous city, there began to be serious problems with overcrowding cementeries. Around the 12th century, this problem became more than serious. The wealthy could still afford expensive cementery plots, but the bodies of the poor were flooding the streets. As solution to this, Saints-Innocents cementery was created for the poor. The poor were buried here in less regal style that usually involved being dumped in a sack into a mass grave. This solution worked for a while and other mass burial plots for the poor were established.
However, by the 17th century even the mass graves of Saints-Innocents were overflowing and the sanitary conditions around these poor cementeries was becoming intolerable, even by 17th century standards. The bones of the older dead were exhumed and laid in piles to make room for fresh corpses. So that the cementery was laden with the unburied remains of the dead. Luckily, the government was also looking for a solution to dealing with a series of abadoned quary mines beneath the city. The solutions to the two problems came in the form of the l'Ossuaire Municipal, the official name for the catacombs.
Alexandre Lenoir first had the idea to use empty underground tunnels to the outskirts of the capital to use as the ossuary. His successor, Thiroux de Crosne, chose a place and the exhumation and transfer of all Paris' dead to the underground sepulture began in 1786. At first the catacombs were merely a place to place the bones of the dead. It wasn't until Louis-Étienne Héricart de Thury assumed responsibility for the ossuary that it became a work of art. He rearranged the skulls and bones to create symbolism within the tunnel and also added old cementery decorations to the underground mortuary to turn it into what you see within the catacombs today.
I've spent quite a bit of time on youtube today viewing videos of ghosts visitors of the catacombs have caught on tape. The list is more than lengthy and several people have caught honestly scary images of the spirits of the dead on tape in the catacombs. The stories of ghosts here are more than prolific. The place is considered to be one of the most haunted places in the world and according to http://www.hauntedamericatours.com/FRANCE.php the most haunted place in France. To learn more about the catacombs or to find out how to visit them go to http://www.catacombes-de-paris.fr/english.htm.
April 4, 2017
The Franklin Murders: A Follow-up and Comments
In 1998, a teenager in Huntsville, Alabama killed his parents and attempted to kill his siblings. His name was Jeffrey Franklin. The event shook the small city of Huntsville and all those that were connected to the case. There was a brutality to the events that was chilling and terrifying. It was tragic.
I wrote a brief story about these events seven years ago. This is story is an attempt to acknowledge the concerns of people who have stopped by to comment on that blog post over the years and to further discuss issues they had with the original story. People still comment on that post regularly. At the time I wrote the post, I never imagined so many people would actually read something I wrote. I wasn’t a known writer and my blog was insignificant to say the least. I wrote a story on Jeffrey Franklin thinking it would be mostly unread. I wrote the story because that event had such an impact on me as a young woman and on so many people in my community and I felt like it was a story that needed to be told. I got many of the details wrong in the story. Many readers have stopped by to comment and give their perspectives on the story. People who knew the Franklins told their stories and I realized that the story impacted everyone even vaguely associated with the family. It was a tragedy that resonated so deeply that no one who witnessed it couldn’t be impacted. My mother knew the Franklin family and knew Cindy Franklin, Jeffrey’s mother. I had been a troubled teen and Cindy and my mother would talk. I had done well and moved on and my mother had offered Cindy advice on how to find help for a troubled teenager. They went to church together and their talks were often spiritual.
When Jeffrey Franklin killed his parents and attempted to kill his siblings, I can still remember the look on my mother’s face. She couldn’t believe it. She had taught Jeffrey in religious education at the church and had believed his story would unfold like mine. He would be troubled and outgrow it and have a good life. None of us knew how to respond. Of course, my mother was hit hard as she thought Cindy was a good friend and a wonderful woman. My mother still cries when she thinks of the children and Cindy and what it was like to see the children in the hospital the next day.
I wrote my first story on this blog when I believed that something Satanic had driven Jeffrey to do what he did. He had claimed the devil (A figure with horns on his head and eyes) made him do it. His writings prior to the murders have been released and show that Jeffrey was planning on offering his family as a sacrifice to Satan. ( http://whnt.com/2016/05/25/jeffrey-franklins-dark-writings-foreshadowed-his-deadly-attack-on-his-family/ ) . If you follow the attached link, you can see Jeffrey’s letters and the three murder weapons. The pictures are disturbing so I wouldn’t look if you are sensitive. Jeffrey’s writings were horrific and he offered himself up to Satan. He also planned to get off on an insanity plea in the letters. Jeffrey clearly was involved in the dark arts and Satanism and the murders were driven partly by this, but there is more to the story than this.
Since I wrote the first story, I have vastly changed my perspective on this case, partly because I have been blessed by so many people who were more involved in it that I was telling me their side of the story and partly because I now work with so many troubled teens at my office. Either way, I wanted to update the initial story with comments and information that have come to me over the years. Later, I wrote another story on the Franklin case because a woman contacted me with a ghost story about the case. (http://ghoststoriesandhauntedplaces.blogspot.com/2010/11/tragic-ghost-of-murdered-mother.html). She believed Cindy was haunting the nursing home where she used to work and she wanted me to tell the story. I published that woman’s story anonymously and it was beautiful. It even inspired one of the Franklin children to respond and reach out to me. I was deeply moved by their stories and their hope and strength. The first time I told the story it was a horror story. Now, I hope it is a more real story. I cannot tell this story as well as those who inspired it, so I have posted direct quotes from comments below. I was moved by the people who wanted Jeffrey’s story told. They wanted people to understand his mental illness and how far he has come. I was more deeply moved by the children who have a strength that I will never know. They are amazing. Here are a few of the comments and the stories that have come to me since my first story. You can read the original story and all the comments at:http://ghoststoriesandhauntedplaces.blogspot.com/2010/02/axe-murder-of-franklin-family.html
“In 2005, I was working at A. Rehab . Well, I'd heard stories of a phantom nurse who was said to walk the halls at night, but being a veteran of several nursing homes, I'd heard a lot of stories like that, seems like every nursing homes has it's resident ghost. Turns out that this one was a little different. I was speaking to a couple of the night shift CNAs, (cna, in case you don't know, is a Certified Nursing Assistant, which I was at the time, waiting on my nursing license to come through), and they had both told me of watching a nurse they didn't recognize, walk down the hall and into a residents room, when they followed after her, and entered the room, the only ones there were the two residents that shared the room and they were sleeping, but the curtain between the beds was moving as if it had been pushed or disturbed. I dismissed it as a neat story but nothing more. The next week, I was waiting to clock out after finishing up my shift, and was standing at the time clock, with about 5 minutes to go, when I noticed that across the hall from where I was, the lights were on. The room I was looking into was the physical therapy department, it had double doors, and each had a window in the center. I thought maybe someone had just forgotten to turn off the lights, so I was going to go do that. I crossed the hall and looked into the room. Now this room is a rectangular shape, and if you were looking into it from the door, you would be looking in from one of the long sides of the rectangle, and the other side of the room was lined with windows looking out on an open area outside. It was 11:00 at night so it was dark outside, making the windows into the room very reflective and mirror-like, as I was looking in, I saw the reflection of a nurse, in front of me, slightly to my left, walking very fast, moving from right to left. Well, my initial thought was that someone was in that room and they were exiting through a side door. I saw this very clearly, it was a female, dressed in a white nurses uniform, white skirt, and top, no hat, she was about 5'5" or so, with dark hair just below her collar. She didn't look left or right, but moved straight ahead, very fast and with a purpose. I grabbed the doorknob and tried to open the door, but it was locked, upon further investigation, it turns out that someone had apparently left the lights on, and that there was no other door way to enter or exit, also, after looking in for a while, I realized that due to the windows on the other side of the room, I could see the entire room, and it was completely empty. Then I remembered the phantom nurse story and the reality of what I had seen started to set in and I got creeped out, I crossed the hall, clocked out, went home, and didn't sleep well.
What does this have to do with poor Mrs. Franklin? Here's how it came together for me. 6 months later, I was now an lpn, and I worked at another nursing home in Huntsville, one night over dinner, i was talking to another nurse and I happened to tell her this story, when I described what I'd seen, her eyes got very large, and her exact words were, "I bet that's Cynthia!". Not being from this area, I didn't know who she was talking about. She then went on to tell me that "Cynthia" was Cynthia Franklin, and that she had known her and that they worked at A. Rehab together. She went on to tell me that her son Jeffrey had, in the late '90s, flipped out and murdered her and other family members. At the time, I thought that even if this was this Cynthia, why the heck she would hang around a nursing home she worked at after her death. Jump forward a couple years, I'm currently employed at another nursing home here in Huntsville, I was telling this story to another nurse and when I got to the part where the last nurse had told me her name, the one I was speaking with told very matter of factly, "Oh, yeah, I was working with Cynthia when it happened, I knew her very well", and here's when it all clicked. The nurse I was talking too, was a lady named Jane Doe who had been there at A. Rehab, she and Cynthia worked together and she explained to me that Cynthia would often stay at work until 2 or 3 in the morning, because she was afraid of her son and she didn't feel safe or comfortable in her own home. Stella told me that the only place she felt safe was at work, so she stayed there as much as she could. So know for some reason, I, a complete stranger to the Franklins and for no reasons other than sheer coincidence had learned the identity of the phantom nurse at A. Rehab, and as a bonus, I even understood why she was there. It was the only place she felt safe for her, so she comes back. If you ask day shift personnel, they'll tell you they've never heard of a phantom nurse, but you ask the night shift CNAs, the longtime employees, and you'll get a different story, if you can get them to talk about it at all.
I have to say, I don't tell you this lightly, and I don't know if I would like for this to be made public, after all, her kids are still alive and this would I'm sure be a very sensitive subject to them and others who might have known and loved this lady. Also, it seems that I cannot escape the Franklin case as it turns out that upon over hearing me talking to Jane Doe, one of my CNAs had currently been working Huntsville Hospital at the time and she was one of the aides that helped take care of the children there. According to her, those children were the most pitiful that anyone had seen, and everyone worked very hard to help them, but they all thought those kids' story was one of the saddest they had heard, you could hear the sadness in her voice and see it in her eyes when spoke of them. I just thought it was strange how all these details kept revealing themselves to me, and how I keep getting glimpses into this case that I have no ties to, or reason to know these things."“Thank you very much for sharing this story. My name is Sara Franklin (well, Deitzman now). Cynthia was my mother. To me, this story is not upsetting. It is amazing to hear about my mom after almost 15 years, to find out that she seems to be continuing what she did after death. Do you still see her?”“Mrs. Deitzman,
Although I returned to work at that place in 2014, I have not seen her, they've added a huge new wing and that's primarily where I worked. I still continued to have weird coincidences happen, like after this story was posted by Jessica, I became her coworker and, (I hope), friend, and upon returning to that Facility, I met a nurse who was a friend of the family who told me she had actually been to your house the night that it all happened. I no longer worker there, having moved on to greener pastures.”Comments from the original post:“We're all doin alright. This is Tim Franklin. Yes, it was pretty messed up but that's what happens when you fuck with that many different drugs. Anyway, interesting horror writing.. Definitely makes it sound pretty brutal...”“I personally witness this guy at a friends house couple nights before, he was doing ritalin, xanax, cocaine and think klonopin. Most of us were tripping on acid that night (alot) and he passed out on the couch. I personally wrote on his forehead with a sharpie "I eat D**K". Ha messing with the Dark Arts, I believe it was all the drugs he was snorting, and mentally jacked up.”“I am a close family friend of the Franklin's and have between since u was 5. They were also our neighbors until the massacre took place. Ms. Penot, several of the things you wrote about what happened are incorrect. But I did find it an interesting read and as a lifelong Huntsvillian, completely agree with the way you described our city, though it had grown substantially in size and population since. You might consider researching what happened a little more so you can fix some of the misinformation in your story and make it more informative for those reading. Thanks for posting and putting some of the odd instances of our town out there to those interested! Hope I don't sound rude, that is certainly not my intention. –Nikki”“He is in Donaldson Correctional Facility, and he gets a hearing for Parole in June of 2016.”
“I was the 911 calltaker for this incident. I visited his siblings at Huntsville Hospital the next day, and I am amazed at how well they recovered. They kids were taken to New York to live with their Uncle, who I believe was a doctor up there. I can honestly tell you that call was the worst I ever answered. I hope I can be at the parole hearing to lend support to his victims and see him rot in prison for a much longer time.”“Jeff is in Bullock Correctional, a medium security prison just south of Montgomery. he is still in the mental health block but is far from crazy. he got his GED years ago, knows Spanish, took drafting and art classes at Donalson Correctional. he has a very positive attitude. he was denied parole but will be up again in 5 yrs.there are 4 of us that correspond with Jeff and some of us even visit. if any of you close friends of his or the family would like to drop him a line or Christmas card i will publish the address.”“Hello. I'm In case anyone is still interested he is actually diagnosed with schizophrenia. I know a family member and many of the details. And i agree with Nikki that if you're going to post a story like this you have to get the facts straight.but i can see why you are so interested in this event. I don't think he'll ever be getting out of prison. His letters to the judge are bizarre and he gets the best treatment for his mental state in there.”
More Information:http://whnt.com/2016/05/25/jeffrey-franklins-dark-writings-foreshadowed-his-deadly-attack-on-his-family/http://blog.al.com/breaking/2013/01/post_997.html
I wrote a brief story about these events seven years ago. This is story is an attempt to acknowledge the concerns of people who have stopped by to comment on that blog post over the years and to further discuss issues they had with the original story. People still comment on that post regularly. At the time I wrote the post, I never imagined so many people would actually read something I wrote. I wasn’t a known writer and my blog was insignificant to say the least. I wrote a story on Jeffrey Franklin thinking it would be mostly unread. I wrote the story because that event had such an impact on me as a young woman and on so many people in my community and I felt like it was a story that needed to be told. I got many of the details wrong in the story. Many readers have stopped by to comment and give their perspectives on the story. People who knew the Franklins told their stories and I realized that the story impacted everyone even vaguely associated with the family. It was a tragedy that resonated so deeply that no one who witnessed it couldn’t be impacted. My mother knew the Franklin family and knew Cindy Franklin, Jeffrey’s mother. I had been a troubled teen and Cindy and my mother would talk. I had done well and moved on and my mother had offered Cindy advice on how to find help for a troubled teenager. They went to church together and their talks were often spiritual.
When Jeffrey Franklin killed his parents and attempted to kill his siblings, I can still remember the look on my mother’s face. She couldn’t believe it. She had taught Jeffrey in religious education at the church and had believed his story would unfold like mine. He would be troubled and outgrow it and have a good life. None of us knew how to respond. Of course, my mother was hit hard as she thought Cindy was a good friend and a wonderful woman. My mother still cries when she thinks of the children and Cindy and what it was like to see the children in the hospital the next day.
I wrote my first story on this blog when I believed that something Satanic had driven Jeffrey to do what he did. He had claimed the devil (A figure with horns on his head and eyes) made him do it. His writings prior to the murders have been released and show that Jeffrey was planning on offering his family as a sacrifice to Satan. ( http://whnt.com/2016/05/25/jeffrey-franklins-dark-writings-foreshadowed-his-deadly-attack-on-his-family/ ) . If you follow the attached link, you can see Jeffrey’s letters and the three murder weapons. The pictures are disturbing so I wouldn’t look if you are sensitive. Jeffrey’s writings were horrific and he offered himself up to Satan. He also planned to get off on an insanity plea in the letters. Jeffrey clearly was involved in the dark arts and Satanism and the murders were driven partly by this, but there is more to the story than this.
Since I wrote the first story, I have vastly changed my perspective on this case, partly because I have been blessed by so many people who were more involved in it that I was telling me their side of the story and partly because I now work with so many troubled teens at my office. Either way, I wanted to update the initial story with comments and information that have come to me over the years. Later, I wrote another story on the Franklin case because a woman contacted me with a ghost story about the case. (http://ghoststoriesandhauntedplaces.blogspot.com/2010/11/tragic-ghost-of-murdered-mother.html). She believed Cindy was haunting the nursing home where she used to work and she wanted me to tell the story. I published that woman’s story anonymously and it was beautiful. It even inspired one of the Franklin children to respond and reach out to me. I was deeply moved by their stories and their hope and strength. The first time I told the story it was a horror story. Now, I hope it is a more real story. I cannot tell this story as well as those who inspired it, so I have posted direct quotes from comments below. I was moved by the people who wanted Jeffrey’s story told. They wanted people to understand his mental illness and how far he has come. I was more deeply moved by the children who have a strength that I will never know. They are amazing. Here are a few of the comments and the stories that have come to me since my first story. You can read the original story and all the comments at:http://ghoststoriesandhauntedplaces.blogspot.com/2010/02/axe-murder-of-franklin-family.html
“In 2005, I was working at A. Rehab . Well, I'd heard stories of a phantom nurse who was said to walk the halls at night, but being a veteran of several nursing homes, I'd heard a lot of stories like that, seems like every nursing homes has it's resident ghost. Turns out that this one was a little different. I was speaking to a couple of the night shift CNAs, (cna, in case you don't know, is a Certified Nursing Assistant, which I was at the time, waiting on my nursing license to come through), and they had both told me of watching a nurse they didn't recognize, walk down the hall and into a residents room, when they followed after her, and entered the room, the only ones there were the two residents that shared the room and they were sleeping, but the curtain between the beds was moving as if it had been pushed or disturbed. I dismissed it as a neat story but nothing more. The next week, I was waiting to clock out after finishing up my shift, and was standing at the time clock, with about 5 minutes to go, when I noticed that across the hall from where I was, the lights were on. The room I was looking into was the physical therapy department, it had double doors, and each had a window in the center. I thought maybe someone had just forgotten to turn off the lights, so I was going to go do that. I crossed the hall and looked into the room. Now this room is a rectangular shape, and if you were looking into it from the door, you would be looking in from one of the long sides of the rectangle, and the other side of the room was lined with windows looking out on an open area outside. It was 11:00 at night so it was dark outside, making the windows into the room very reflective and mirror-like, as I was looking in, I saw the reflection of a nurse, in front of me, slightly to my left, walking very fast, moving from right to left. Well, my initial thought was that someone was in that room and they were exiting through a side door. I saw this very clearly, it was a female, dressed in a white nurses uniform, white skirt, and top, no hat, she was about 5'5" or so, with dark hair just below her collar. She didn't look left or right, but moved straight ahead, very fast and with a purpose. I grabbed the doorknob and tried to open the door, but it was locked, upon further investigation, it turns out that someone had apparently left the lights on, and that there was no other door way to enter or exit, also, after looking in for a while, I realized that due to the windows on the other side of the room, I could see the entire room, and it was completely empty. Then I remembered the phantom nurse story and the reality of what I had seen started to set in and I got creeped out, I crossed the hall, clocked out, went home, and didn't sleep well.
What does this have to do with poor Mrs. Franklin? Here's how it came together for me. 6 months later, I was now an lpn, and I worked at another nursing home in Huntsville, one night over dinner, i was talking to another nurse and I happened to tell her this story, when I described what I'd seen, her eyes got very large, and her exact words were, "I bet that's Cynthia!". Not being from this area, I didn't know who she was talking about. She then went on to tell me that "Cynthia" was Cynthia Franklin, and that she had known her and that they worked at A. Rehab together. She went on to tell me that her son Jeffrey had, in the late '90s, flipped out and murdered her and other family members. At the time, I thought that even if this was this Cynthia, why the heck she would hang around a nursing home she worked at after her death. Jump forward a couple years, I'm currently employed at another nursing home here in Huntsville, I was telling this story to another nurse and when I got to the part where the last nurse had told me her name, the one I was speaking with told very matter of factly, "Oh, yeah, I was working with Cynthia when it happened, I knew her very well", and here's when it all clicked. The nurse I was talking too, was a lady named Jane Doe who had been there at A. Rehab, she and Cynthia worked together and she explained to me that Cynthia would often stay at work until 2 or 3 in the morning, because she was afraid of her son and she didn't feel safe or comfortable in her own home. Stella told me that the only place she felt safe was at work, so she stayed there as much as she could. So know for some reason, I, a complete stranger to the Franklins and for no reasons other than sheer coincidence had learned the identity of the phantom nurse at A. Rehab, and as a bonus, I even understood why she was there. It was the only place she felt safe for her, so she comes back. If you ask day shift personnel, they'll tell you they've never heard of a phantom nurse, but you ask the night shift CNAs, the longtime employees, and you'll get a different story, if you can get them to talk about it at all.
I have to say, I don't tell you this lightly, and I don't know if I would like for this to be made public, after all, her kids are still alive and this would I'm sure be a very sensitive subject to them and others who might have known and loved this lady. Also, it seems that I cannot escape the Franklin case as it turns out that upon over hearing me talking to Jane Doe, one of my CNAs had currently been working Huntsville Hospital at the time and she was one of the aides that helped take care of the children there. According to her, those children were the most pitiful that anyone had seen, and everyone worked very hard to help them, but they all thought those kids' story was one of the saddest they had heard, you could hear the sadness in her voice and see it in her eyes when spoke of them. I just thought it was strange how all these details kept revealing themselves to me, and how I keep getting glimpses into this case that I have no ties to, or reason to know these things."“Thank you very much for sharing this story. My name is Sara Franklin (well, Deitzman now). Cynthia was my mother. To me, this story is not upsetting. It is amazing to hear about my mom after almost 15 years, to find out that she seems to be continuing what she did after death. Do you still see her?”“Mrs. Deitzman,
Although I returned to work at that place in 2014, I have not seen her, they've added a huge new wing and that's primarily where I worked. I still continued to have weird coincidences happen, like after this story was posted by Jessica, I became her coworker and, (I hope), friend, and upon returning to that Facility, I met a nurse who was a friend of the family who told me she had actually been to your house the night that it all happened. I no longer worker there, having moved on to greener pastures.”Comments from the original post:“We're all doin alright. This is Tim Franklin. Yes, it was pretty messed up but that's what happens when you fuck with that many different drugs. Anyway, interesting horror writing.. Definitely makes it sound pretty brutal...”“I personally witness this guy at a friends house couple nights before, he was doing ritalin, xanax, cocaine and think klonopin. Most of us were tripping on acid that night (alot) and he passed out on the couch. I personally wrote on his forehead with a sharpie "I eat D**K". Ha messing with the Dark Arts, I believe it was all the drugs he was snorting, and mentally jacked up.”“I am a close family friend of the Franklin's and have between since u was 5. They were also our neighbors until the massacre took place. Ms. Penot, several of the things you wrote about what happened are incorrect. But I did find it an interesting read and as a lifelong Huntsvillian, completely agree with the way you described our city, though it had grown substantially in size and population since. You might consider researching what happened a little more so you can fix some of the misinformation in your story and make it more informative for those reading. Thanks for posting and putting some of the odd instances of our town out there to those interested! Hope I don't sound rude, that is certainly not my intention. –Nikki”“He is in Donaldson Correctional Facility, and he gets a hearing for Parole in June of 2016.”
“I was the 911 calltaker for this incident. I visited his siblings at Huntsville Hospital the next day, and I am amazed at how well they recovered. They kids were taken to New York to live with their Uncle, who I believe was a doctor up there. I can honestly tell you that call was the worst I ever answered. I hope I can be at the parole hearing to lend support to his victims and see him rot in prison for a much longer time.”“Jeff is in Bullock Correctional, a medium security prison just south of Montgomery. he is still in the mental health block but is far from crazy. he got his GED years ago, knows Spanish, took drafting and art classes at Donalson Correctional. he has a very positive attitude. he was denied parole but will be up again in 5 yrs.there are 4 of us that correspond with Jeff and some of us even visit. if any of you close friends of his or the family would like to drop him a line or Christmas card i will publish the address.”“Hello. I'm In case anyone is still interested he is actually diagnosed with schizophrenia. I know a family member and many of the details. And i agree with Nikki that if you're going to post a story like this you have to get the facts straight.but i can see why you are so interested in this event. I don't think he'll ever be getting out of prison. His letters to the judge are bizarre and he gets the best treatment for his mental state in there.”
More Information:http://whnt.com/2016/05/25/jeffrey-franklins-dark-writings-foreshadowed-his-deadly-attack-on-his-family/http://blog.al.com/breaking/2013/01/post_997.html
March 27, 2017
The Disappearing Cross
This story was sent to me by Keith Linder. It is a chilling tale. If you would like to learn more about the paranormal investigation associated with this first hand account of hostile haunting you can read more about it at: http://q13fox.com/2016/10/31/paranormal-researchers-return-to-look-into-haunted-bothell-home-again/ "I will always remember the events of this day. It was the weekend Captain America the Winter Soldier came out. April 2014.
A month before this movie premier, I wanted to enjoy my cousin's spring break, she was a school teacher - 8th and 9th grade level. She was aware of some of the problems we having prior to arriving. I had kept her in the know about some of the events me and my girlfriend were experiencing. One Bible having gone missing for over a year returned one night on fire. Loud bangs, loud thuds, phantom footsteps, and yes a even a flying Amoire. It was for those reasons, she bought a cross with her when she arrived. A gift. Something she wanted us to hang on the bedroom wall. To protect us. Written on the cross were Bible, Joshua 1:9, Phil 4:13, Psalm 28:7 and Matthew 19:26; each verse spoke about maintaining one's strength, one's faith during troubling times.
The cross was prayed over and immediately hung in our bedroom. The bedroom at that time was the third most active place of the house; it's also the place where we sleep. So, a cross positioned high upon the wall seemed a great idea. This was March. Mid March I believe. April arrives.
A week or so before the Captain America movie came out, the cross went missing. Missing objects in our home are not new and not a big deal. Things get taken all the time. Sometimes they return; sometimes they don't. The items that do return are never found in their original spot. This cross would be no exception.
I woke up one morning, my girlfriend was beside me - I looked at the wall the cross was on and saw that it was gone. I told my girlfriend almost immediately.
Other religious objects have been taken already, some broken, some turned to sit upside down, some relocated and some just outright stolen. Whether one cross goes missing or twenty crosses go missing our reaction was always the same. What the heck is going on?
The cross is gone. It's missing. My girlfriend and I had already given up on the notion of even looking for it. After all, it was a gift from my cousin, a spiritual gift at that. No use looking for it, no one else lived with us, and objects get taken all the time. Whatever object we set out to look for, we never find. This cross would be no exception. My girlfriend and I talked about the cross being gone. I emailed my cousin the next day to tell her, she was shock. The weekend arrives.
It's Saturday morning (movie day), and the cross is still missing. Like most Saturdays in my house, it was laundry day. I started doing my laundry early that day so I could go meet one of my friends for drinks. Drinks and movie. That was the plan.
I began my first load of laundry: colored clothing. My girlfriend, Tina, is walking around the house doing her own thing. While my clothes are washing, I decide to go into my office and watch TV. About an hour later, I noticed something peculiar. My first load of clothing was still washing. Now I know there are long wash cycles but this was weird - my brain knows how long it takes for my clothes to wash. So I'm in my office and I glance toward the wash room, hoping to hear the beep beep beep, the noise the washing machine makes when it's done. Clothes don't wash for an hour, especially my clothes, and especially a light load of clothing. So I glance at the wash room and sort of look at the clock on my PC toolbar , I think to myself what's taking my clothes so long to wash.
A few minutes later I hear this knocking sound: a banging and knocking. You know, the sound the washing machine or dryer makes when you're washing your shoes. I hear this noise, and it's clearly coming from the washing machine. So, once again, I glance up from my PC and turn to face the washing machine or wash room.
Now in my mind I'm thinking - that sound wasn't there before? All I put in the washing machine was clothing. Coins, chap stick, keys, etc. wouldn't make that noise. And even if it did, those sounds would have been heard almost immediately. At this point, the wash cycle had been running for nearly over an hour. So why the loud noises now? Normally I would get up, walk to the washing machine and open it up to see what the commotion was about. Normally that's what I would have done. It was very uncharacteristic of me to not stop what I was doing and investigate. Looking back and reliving the moment, it seems weird for me to not get up and investigate the noise, especially with the previous events having happened in this house. I acknowledged the noise, and length of time it was taking for that load to complete. But nothing was motivating me to go see what was taking so long.
Minutes later, the washing machine beeped informing me that the load was complete. I got up and went to the washing machine to transfer my clothes to the dryer. As I was pulling out clothes and tossing them into the dryer. I immediately grabbed hold of something solid. Not clothing. Not shoes. Not anything except a metallic-wooden cross. I didn't know what it was until I pulled it out of the washing machine. There in my hand in two pieces is the cross my cousin gave me.
Now some might say, "Well maybe the cross was in there to begin with." Not so. As I mentioned prior, the would have been heard early on, especially during the spin cycle. The knocking noises I heard began 15 minutes before the washing was complete. When my machine is done it beeps. And also the washing machine was empty when I filled it with my clothing. Some might say, "Maybe you accidentally put the cross in the machine when you loaded in the clothes." Nope. It was a colored clothing load (machine wash COLD/WARM). I sorted my clothing carefully meaning items went into the machine almost one at a time. A cross this size was not going to be grabbed by mistake. I'm talking about an eight-to ten inch cross. 8 inches long. 3 1/2 inches wide. This wasn't a necklace.
Someone might also think might girlfriend put the cross in the machine. My girlfriend was nowhere near the washing machine that day, and I never left my office. The washroom sits right outside my office. And she wouldn't stop my wash load regardless. I do my own laundry, and she does hers.
I had to get those particulars out of the way because I realize people gravitate to the obvious explanation. And that is understandable but allow me to paint the picture near perfect as possible because it even hasn't began to get weird yet. In my hand is the cross my cousin gave me. It was wet and broken. I then called my girlfriend to the room. When she arrived, we both examined the cross from top to bottom. It had been taken the week before, about 5 days prior to turning up in the washing machine. I ended up fixing that cross. I put it back in it's original spot. It would go missing a few more times. It never appeared in the washing machine again.
A few weeks later 2 Bibles caught fire. A month or so after the Bibles catching fire another Bible went missing. It has never returned."
March 22, 2017
Are Teenage Girls More Able to See Shadow People?
Over the years, I have worked with numerous teenagers. I am a therapist, so most of the teens I see are struggling with some massive issue in their life. They are unhappy with their family, they have been abused, or they have mental illnesses. Many issues have brought teenagers to my sofa and I love working with teenagers. They are open and willing to try new things. They haven't been so scared that they can't change. Over the last several months, I have become profoundly aware of a trend I have seen in a couple dozen of the teenage girls I have seen over the years. I have noticed that over my long history of practice, many teen and preteen girls ages 10-15 have come to me saying they see shadow people.From a clinical perspective, it is easy to say that flushes of hormones through the brain and the unique social stressors of puberty and adolescence at this age push young adolescent girls over the edge and they begin to imagine things. Neurologically adolescent children are going through radical change and it could cause shadow like visions. The girls who come to me with the shadow person issues have many different philosophical and religious orientations and perceive the shadow people as different things. Some girls think they are ghosts. Others think they are demons. Quite a few of my girls have believed they are going crazy and that they are hallucinations. It should be noted that none of these girls have ever had any other symptoms consistent with psychosis.
As I also am interested in the paranormal, I also think it is relevant that poltergeist activity is most common in children ages 10-15. Poltergeist activity has been reported since the Roman Empire and history is littered with tales of young girls haunted by ghosts and hostile spirits. In a recent article in the new scientists theorists described this activity as being attributed to changes in the brain during puberty. "Rovetto and Maxia hypothesize that the changes in the brain that occur at puberty involve fluctuations in electron activity." (https://www.newscientist.com/article/...).
In the paranormal community, shadow people and poltergeists are believed to be very different beings. Shadow people are thought to be hostile spirits, demons or ghosts as poltergeists are thought to be the manifestations of telekinetic power in young teenagers. Shadow People are sometimes linked to hypnogogic dreams or sleep paralysis, but these girls were all wide awake when they saw their shadow people. So this leads me to the question? Could these girls actually be more perceptive and more open to seeing into the spirit world? Could they actually be seeing ghosts?
From a clinical perspective, I have to say no, but the ghost story collector in me has to wonder if it isn't something paranormal. Perhaps puberty opens these girls up to something larger and the terror associated with this is what should be treated?
Interesting Links:
https://www.thoughtco.com/shadow-peop...
https://www.newscientist.com/article/...
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publi...
http://www.unexplainedstuff.com/Ghost...
March 5, 2017
An Ode to The Cabin in the Woods
A friend of mine recently posted this cool meme on my Facebook wall and people who had never seen Cabin in the Woods responded passionately about the murderous unicorn. They clearly didn’t get the joke. I reposted the meme on the page of my favorite H.P. Lovecraft group, The H.P. Lovecraft Historic Society, thinking a group of horror fans would get the joke. The response was primarily hatred of my use of the word “Lovecraftian” but secondarily showed that not enough people have seen The Cabin in the Woods, Joss Whedon’s loving homage to all things horror. I am writing this post to encourage people to fix that wrong immediately! As far as I am concerned, this is one of the best horror movies ever made. It isn’t The Exorcist, but it is something of its own. It is a love letter to horror tropes and horror writers carefully wrapped in snarky dialogue and obscure references.
For those of you who missed this gem, it is essentially the tale of five college kids who go stay in a cabin in the woods for a weekend. This is utterly cliché and very purposely cliché. But beneath all the clichés this movie is so much more. The opening scene says everything you need to know. This is actually a deeper story that is carefully crafted to combine every single horror movie cliché into one film. The cabin in the woods is a trap designed to create the perfect sacrifice for the old gods who apparently love horror movie clichés. The teens in the cabin must be sacrificed to one of many horror movie staples. The board below shows all the possible ways the teens could die. They chose which horror movie monster will kill them in a scene that whispers of a classic scene from The Evil Dead. The teens stupidly are lured into a basement where they mess with a bunch of junk. When one girl reads from the journal of a dead girl, the choice is made and the redneck, zombie, torture family is released from their prison and sent to kill the teens by the keepers of the old god.
The movie climaxes in a blood bath in which every horror movie monster that has been imprisoned is released to feed upon the keepers of the old god. Clive Barker, Lovecraft, Romero, and Carpenter would all be proud to see creatures reminiscent of their own feed on the blood on the innocent…..ish. Unicorns and fairies and other silly, nonviolent creatures join the mix for texture. I have placed a link to the opening scene of this beautiful film below. Enjoy.
https://youtu.be/_nGEUiwr4oE
February 16, 2017
The Sanctuary
On my recent trip to New York, I stayed in a small boutique hotel off of Time Square called The Sanctuary Hotel. It is small and lovely. The décor draws from Eastern Inspirations and features Indian inspired and Buddhist themed art. The rooms were small but comfortable. The staff was very friendly and the lobby was quiet. The food was good.
The hotel wasn’t haunted. There is nothing online that says it is haunted. I couldn’t find anything about its history online that would indicate the building has ever had anything remarkable happen in it. It does have a wicked, wonderful Halloween party every year, but that is as spooky as it gets. Despite this, for my three night stay, I was awakened every night at 3am by what sounded like someone trying to get into my room, entering in my room, and stomping across my room to fidget about with something in the corner. I sat up. Nothing was moving. I saw no signs of a haunting, but the noise was still there and it was eerily close. The first night, I assumed it must have been the people in the room next to me. That was the only explanation. It was late. I must have misjudged the proximity of the noise. In the morning, I looked next to my room. There was no room next to mine. There were pipes. The next night I got up and walked out of my room to see if someone just loved messing with the pipes at 3am. You never know. People are weird. There was nothing there. The last night, I ignored the noise. It wasn’t going to hurt me and I have seen and heard creepier things in my life. I still don’t know what the noise was or why it always happened at 3am. Staff didn’t comment. The only history I could find of the building was that it was built in 1935 and was once an apartment complex. I would love to hear more if anyone knows more.
February 13, 2017
How Valentine's Day Started with Naked Ladies and Dead Animals!
It is time for my annual Valentine's Day Post. This is my favorite post of the year because Valentine's Day's origins are so beautifully twisted. I guess I am just a romantic that way. I hope you all have a happy Valentine's Day!My favorite thing about holidays are their bizarre origins. Most of our modern celebrations have roots in old pagan traditions. Valantine's Day is no different. Its pagan roots are just more bizarre than most. They are so strange I like to write about them every year. I know it is slightly off topic, but naked people being flogged with animal hides is worth discussing in any forum. Apparently the ancient roots of Valentine's Day begins with the Romans. The Romans celebrated Lupercalia from Feb. 13 to 15. In Roman mythology Lupercus was the equivalent of the Greek god Pan who was known to be a sexy sort of fellow who promoted fertility. His holiday was a somewhat romantic kind of celebration. During Lupercalia the men would sacrifice a goat and a dog and then whip women with the hides of the dead animals. The women would line up naked in order to be whipped. They did this because they believed this ritual would make them more fertile. Afterwards, there would be lottery in which men and women would be paired up for a night of naked fun.
I know, you are now wishing we still celebrated Valentine's day this way. Enough with the cheesy cards. Where are the dead animals, whippings, and naked people? It was the Catholic Church that ruined the fun. Emperor Claudius II killed two Valentine's in different years of February 14th. Both men were martyred and the day derives its name from these two martyred saints. In the 5th century, Pope Gelasius I got confused and merged the two martyrs into one person and named February 14th after them. He also absorbed the romantic traditions of Lupercalia into the day in order to soften the pagan debauchery and retake the day for Christianity. Christianity has a long history of doing this type of thing. Christmas was taken from Roman Saturnalia traditions and Norse Yule traditions. By absorbing pagan holidays rather than forbidding them, ancient Christians were able to gain new followers rather than lose them.
Chaucer and Shakespeare can be credited with further romanticizing St. Valentine's day and turning it into the romantic, kissy holiday it is today, but I will always think back to better days when women ran naked through the streets being beaten with dead animals.
February 3, 2017
Walking Through Dead Children's Playground
There is something uncanny about Dead Children's Playground in Huntsville, Alabama. Children rarely play there and when they do their voices echo in the old quarry and resonate with a creepiness that just can't be captured without actually being there. With this in mind, I decided to video tape Dead Children's Playground. The footage is below. It is one of the most beautiful and chilling places I have ever been.
February 2, 2017
Win a $50 Amazon Gift Card!
My new book, The Twilight Saint, was released this week. In order to celebrate, I am going to give a way a $50 amazon gift card. In order to enter to win, you only have to do three things, follow the link below to get your free copy of my book, comment below indicating you will review it on amazon when you are done, and review the book. In one week, I will do a drawing and announce the winner!
Thank you!
https://www.amazon.com/Twilight-Saint...
January 30, 2017
Planning A Haunting Trip to New York
It has been a long time since I regularly posted on this blog. I used to post every day, but as I have recently been consumed by novel writing I have lost track of my passion for the paranormal. This seems particularly sad to me as ghosts are what pulled me to writing in the first place. Haunted North Alabama was my first book and I still love retelling the tales from that collection of regional folklore. With the sequel to my kindle best seller The Accidental Witch is coming out his year, I have had a little time to return to my first love. As I return to my passionate collecting of ghost stories, I had to think back on what I did to be able to write a ghost story a day when I started this blog. I was able to do this by traveling. So, for my first step to discovering ghost stories again is to travel to New York in two weeks and find some of New York’s most interesting haunts.
My first step in planning my journey was to research New York’s most interesting haunted locations. I have already explored New York’s haunted side before so I wanted to go places I had never been before. After reading and ruling out what I had already seen, I finished with this list for my haunted New York trip.
1. * Washington Square Park: I am always drawn to parks with sinister histories and Washington Square’s history is more sinister than most. Before it was a park, Washington square was a burial ground for the poor and slaves. The ghosts of those who were once buried in this ghostly attraction still come out at night to torment visitors. There is also a tree called Hangmen’s Elm I would like to see and learn more about.
2. * The Merchant’s House Museum: This museum was once the home of Ms. Gertrude Tredwell. Ms. Tredwell was so dedicated to her family home that she is said to still haunt this museum to this day. This museum is said to plagued by many disturbing apparitions including strange smells, odd sounds, and full body apparitions. I also added this location to my list because I love museums and any excuse to go to one is good enough for me.
3. * St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery: Old Churches are always haunting but this old church is more haunting than most. This church is more than 200 years old and is said to be haunted by Peter Stuyvesant, the governor of New Amsterdam. He isn’t alone in his haunting either, spectral women and strange men have also been seen wandering the lovely, church.
4. * The Dakota: I have a passionate fan of architecture and The Dakota, an apartment building on 14 West and 10th Street, has some breathtaking architecture. It is also where John Lennon was shot. Yoko Ono and John Lennon lived here together and Ms. Ono reported that she continued to see him here long after his death. His ghost isn’t alone in this gothic building. Looming shadows and haunting women also call this apartment building home.
