Media.........Interesting News! Interesting Letters!

[Bella]

This is an article about the courthouse I used to work at. It's been declared the most haunted place in California.  

At first the Victim Serices office was located in the bottom corridor of the courthouse - right next to the janitor's closet mentioned in this article, and just down the hall from the elevator that goes up and down by itself. We used to hear footsteps up and down the corridor when there was no one there. The lights used to flicker off and on and the alarms would go off for no reason. It was especially scarey in the ladies restroom, which used to be a holding cell for prisoners. Then they moved us upstairs to what used to be the women's jail. It's in the oldest part of the building and still has bars on the windows. It's supposed to be the most haunted place in the courthouse, but it didn't feel all creepy like the bottom of the courthouse did. Once in a while we would hear a woman crying, but for some reason she didn't bother us at all.


.:Story originally published by:.
Ukiah Daily Journal / CA | Mark Hedges - Apr 02.04

Original headline: Night janitors say the downtown courthouse haunted
Sometimes modernization can uncover pieces of the past, as when construction projects uncover archaeological sites.

But in the case of the Mendocino County Courthouse in downtown Ukiah, a new security system is apparently revealing the presence of some long-time residents of the building who have a mind of their own despite their lack of an earthly body.

In other words, they're ghosts.

New, high-tech, motion-detecting cameras are revealing to security and janitorial staff that something is moving about the courthouse's gloomy halls in the still hours of the night.

Something best described as a "mist" has repeatedly appeared on the cameras moving back and forth across the courthouse's lower hallway where the jury selection department is located.

A janitor who saw the tape said this ghostly apparition can also be seen floating up in front of the light that hangs down in this hallway, causing the light to be partially obscured.

This janitor also said that a "little box lights up" when motion is detected, "and you can see the box light up and then it lights up somewhere else."

New metal-detecting machines at the courthouse entrances have also gone off without a soul -- or at least a soul combined with a body -- to be found, according to some of the security personnel.

To the janitors and some of the long-time employees in the building, these occurrences are something of a vindication.

"We've known there was something here for years," said the janitor "informant," who, like everybody else, would prefer not to risk ridicule from skeptics by providing his name. Many talk of how "spooky" the building gets once it gets dark and cleared out of (living) people.

Many in the building refer to the supernatural occurrences in the building as belonging to a spirit named "George," and this name has been passed down through the years through generations of employees.

The courthouse is comprised of two different sections, one built in the 1920s and one built in the 1950s. But parts of the building also comprise remnants of an earlier courthouse from the "Wild West" era which itself had replaced an earlier courthouse.

Just a brief review of some of the incidents that occurred in one version of the courthouse or another supply ample evidence that the site has some dark history.

The only execution that took place in Mendocino County history occurred on the courthouse roof, in the days before executions were moved to San Quentin.

A judge was also shot and killed by an irate defendant during a trial. The man made his escape from the courthouse but a posse brought him back and they were in the middle of hanging him on the street when a lawyer made an impassioned speech calling for the rule of law, so the man was taken to San Quentin.

The county jail was also located on the site of old, and evidence of jail bars are still to be seen in some areas of the existing building. Apparently one of those incarcerated in the jail committed suicide.

As for the janitor theDaily Journal spoke to, he didn't know how to connect to any historical tale the apparition he and another janitor witnessed one night about 10 p.m. as they were sitting in a janitor's closet.

"Someone came walking down the hallway and we didn't think much of it," he explained. "The door was open and I caught out of the side of my eye a dress walking by and high heels. After it went past the doorway, it only went about five more steps and then it stopped."

He went out in the hallway to see who it was, but nobody was there. "There was nowhere for this person to go in five steps," he said. "It either would have had to continue on down the hallway or turn left down another long hallway." The latter direction would have taken the ghost directly to the area that the motion cameras have been picking up strange imagery.

In addition, this janitor and his colleagues -- along with other members of the courthouse administration who spoke with the Daily Journal -- have witnessed the elevator traveling up and down the various levels of the building with no one in it, and always at night.

"One time the elevator started up from the ground floor and we could hear it stopping on every floor," the janitor said. "When it got to the top, it turned around and did the same thing back down. And then I had to get into the thing and go up and clean the top floor."

[fluffy]

spooky, bella

[Cain]

Question: has it always has this reputation, or just since you've been there?  Also, did you know you're name is now in the word filter?

[B_M_W]

Bella is in the word filter?

Oh, I gues it is.  

I like.

[Bella]

Question: has it always has this reputation, or just since you've been there?

There have always been stories about the courthouse being haunted, but I kind of chalked it up to the strangeness of the building itself. They tore down most of a really old courthouse sometime in the 1800's and built a new one over the basement of the older one. Then they tore most of that one down in the 1920's and erected a beautiful stone building that looked like a mini-cathedral. In 1950, they chopped the front of the newest building off and erected a nasty looking concrete thing that looks like a small box sitting on top of a bigger box. The back of the courthouse is three stories high and the front of the courthouse is four. To make it even more confusing - the floors in the two sections don't match up. If you want to go to floor three of the old section, you have to either take the stairs, or else get off the elevator one floor above and walk down a flight of stairs.  

I first worked in a room where the old section joined the front section. One half of the room had high ceilings and beautiful windows - the other half had a low ceiling and square boxy windows. The flooring under my desk was marble and under the next desk over it was industrial carpeting over ratty linoleum. It was just bizarre.

The haunted elevator and corridor are in the newest part of the building, btw. The DA secretaries won't work late because their office is next to the elevator and no one goes to the ladies room alone since one of the women swore something grabbed her while she was sitting on the john. I kind of liked hearing the ghosts,  but I'm spooky that way.

Also, did you know you're name is now in the word filter?

:

[fluffy]

you always were pretty spooky

[Cain]

If I type B3lla (replace the 3 with e) then it changes to She who Eats Souls.  Interesting history of the building too, sounds like some "interesting" planning went on there.  I once considered being a solicitor, and took part in some mock trials at some extremely old buildings, though as far as I know they were never haunted.

[fluffy]

If I type B3lla (replace the 3 with e) then it changes to She who Eats Souls.

i think you need to get a new computer
yours is obviously haunted

[Cain]

By She Who eats Souls?  Or Be1la?

[B_M_W]

spooky, She Who Eats Souls

Yours is obviously haunted as well, Miss Moderator.

[fluffy]

my computer is not haunted
you people are just trying to mess with the bunny's mind

shame on you people
picking on a little innocent bunny

[Bella]

shame on you people
picking on a little innocent bunny

Uh huh.......innocent little bunny.  

[B_M_W]

my computer is not haunted
you people are just trying to mess with the bunny's mind

shame on you people
picking on a little innocent bunny

Since when have bunnies been innocent?

[Cain]

I wouldnt be so sure...Bel1a is, after all, evil incarnate.  She may want you to think that we are messing a poor bunny around, so she can continue to haunt your PC.

This probably belongs in the conspiracy thread.

[Eldora, Oracle of Alchemy]

Bella

I think TAPS should get hold of this.  They did go as far as New Orleans for a show.  Do you have a link to send them?

http://www.the-atlantic-paranormal-society.com/

On one of the video tapes from that show, you could see a lamp moving, really slowly, it took 5 or 10 minutes to move just a few inches.  There were just the two guys from the show talking, the table it was on was too small for anyone to be underneath and the table cloth didn't bunch up like it would if someone pulled on the cord of the lamp.  Usually they can explain any weirdness, like doors that open aren't set right, weird sounds are coming from bad plumbing, weird smells are coming in from the street through vents the people didn't know were there.