The Murdered Man

In the 1980's, in Sacramento, California, there lived a lady by the name of Dorothea Puente who turned her home into a boarding house.  For several years, she apparently murdered some of her boarders, and had her handyman bury them on her property.  She was finally caught and convicted of murdering 3 men, but suspected in the deaths of 9 victims all together.  She was serving two consecutive life sentences at the Chowchilla Correctional Facility for Women, when she died of natural causes in 2011.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothea_Puente

Around 2004, a fellow paranormal investigator and I went to Dorothea Puente's home in Sacramento.  It had been empty and abandoned since her arrest about 10 years or so earlier.  We were curious to see if I could "sense" anything paranormal there.  At the time, since the home was empty and up for sale, the property was surrounded by a cyclone fence.  Whenever we usually went by, the fence was locked and you couldn't access the property.  However, this one night that we went, the lock on the gate was unlocked, and so we snuck into the yard.  The home was a small Victorian, and the bulk of the yard was on the side of the house, with a smaller "L" shaped piece that went around the back of the house.  As we walked along the side of the house, all seemed very quiet to me...I sensed nothing at that point.  But when we turned the corner at the back, it was as though I suddenly stepped into a wind tunnel.  I could feel paranormal energy all around, and picked up three individual energies.  But what really got me were the emotions tied to the energies...I kept picking up on emotions like sadness, regret, frustration...these were the people that Dorothea had murdered and buried on her property.  Other emotions that I picked up on came across as questions, such as "why did you do this to us", and "we were old and only had a few years left.  Why did you steal them?".  The overall feeling was very sad.  When we got back around to the front of the house, my friend said to me, "When you went around the back of the house, do you remember what the very first thing you said was?" I told him no, and he replied, "You said 'Oh, I'm so sorry', then went on to describe all the things you were picking up".  We took a few photos, then headed home.  When my friend downloaded the photos, he came across one that looked like I had a ghost in the frame with me.

The photo below shows an apparent apparition behind me.  To the left, I've added an enlarged closeup of the apparition.  You can see his arm, thigh, head, chest, and if you look closely, a hat:

Here is the same photo, with the apparition outlined.  The dots you see on his chest are actually garbage cans down the street.

It was a cool evening, but not cool enough to create breath or mist.  The rest of the photos came out clear, without any mist in them.  Ghost or not?  I'll leave that for you to decide.  NOTE: This home has since been purchased, and paranormal investigations are not welcomed there by the new owner.

The Body Basket or Wicker Casket

For those folks who are interested in the paranormal, most usually develop an interest for things that are paranormal or darker in nature.  Things that the average person might not collect or even think about.  I happen to be one of the former, and sometimes things migrate into my life without my even trying.  Take the Body Basket...or Wicker Casket as it's also known.  There isn't much history on them, but what little I do know I will share here.

The earliest records of them being used that I can find is during the Civil War.  They were used as temporary caskets for the many, many soldiers that died every day.  The wicker was a cheap material to use in large quantities as compared to the cost of wood, and wicker was lighter to transport.  After the Civil War, and during the Victorian era, wicker caskets were used in the funerary business, mostly for viewings, and occasionally for funerals.  They were popular for children.  In the early 20th century, up until the 1930's, body baskets were used routinely by police and coroners to remove bodies from crimes scenes.  After that, I wasn't able to really find any more information on them being used commercially any more.  However, I did stumble across a message board a few years ago where a person posted that they'd seen about a half dozen or so of these wicker caskets in a dumpster behind a mortuary in their neighborhood!  Such is the way of life and death, and as an antique collector and history buff (especially Civil War and Old West), it hurt to hear about those antiques and bits of history being discarded in such an awful manner.  However, as luck would have it, a different wicker casket literally landed at my doorstep out of the blue one day.  Here is a photo of my wicker casket:

It's actually reinforced with metal ribbing spaced throughout.  It also has metal hasps to lock the top and bottom together.  Metal handles, covered in wicker, are attached at the top and bottom for lifting and carrying.  The wicker is wrapped over a wooden slat and metal ribbing frame and is very sturdy.  I can stand it up on its' end to display it, provided that I lean it against a wall.  The bottom isn't flat, but slightly rounded and it will rock because of its' own weight.  But it will support its' own weight to stand up for display.  Anyway, this was what I felt like blogging about today...just the paranormal history lesson for the day.  Thanks for reading this far.  Happy Hauntings.