Bloody Bucket Bridge

Florida Memory, Public Domain, flickr : (The Lyndhurst Plantation in Monticello is far north of The Bloody Bridge, but this photo illustrates the style of homes in mid-19th century Florida during the time of slavery.)

Philadelphian “Tampa Tom” knew there was really nothing to “The Legend of Bloody Bucket Bridge,” a tale of a slave woman and midwife who supposedly smothered the children she delivered and dumped into the Peace River in Wauchula, telling the parents the babes had been stillborn.

Regardless of the baselessness of the legend, Tom would go down to Florida with his wife and film the location and story, then have a luxurious night at St. Pete’s Don Cesar. They would probably film and post their celebration too, complete with the apt Bloody Marys. They were wont to share their celebrations of completed “paranormal explorations” with their social media fans and Tom had lots of fans in Florida because he often traveled back home to create new content for his channel.

It was an easy story: People loved the vengeful ghost angle, and who could argue with a slave’s righteous vengeance? It was said her masters had killed (or sold) her child. And for full disclosure, Tom told the story of the “Bloody Bridge Bar” nearby and explain that the reason for its name was its notoriety as a place of fighting. Perhaps the bridge had been named for the bar instead of the other way around, he admitted to the camera.

But then he began his gaslighting tour guide magic in which logic gets tossed in lieu of sights, sounds, sensations, and emotions while his cinematographer-wife, “Pennsylvania Pam”-filmed the light of the setting sun on the river which, in this light, could be argued, appeared “red as blood.” As the night wore on, he inspired his youtube fans to listen to what may or may not be “signs” of a haunting, of an evil spirit, a murderous witch: wind rippling the water, the glowing of a light, a prolonged eerie silence. It was as good a Casanovian seduction as any. And by morning, it was a wrap.

At The Don Cesar in St. Pete the next day, Tom and Pam slept through the afternoon and into the night, having celebrated what they jokingly called “the light con.” They slept like two dead people.

But all at once, a sound woke them up in their room,a room dark as pitch. They turned on a light, but there was no one. Pam went to the bathroom while Tom lay there, immobile, tired, and still a little drunk. When Pam returned to the room, a huge figure loomed over Tom, but she couldn’t see his or her face. She could hear her husband’s muffled cries and see his body as it kicked and bucked.

She ran from the room to get help.

But no one could find evidence of an intruder that night or in the weeks to come.

Pam went to jail for the death of Tampa Tom.