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Things that go bump in the night

The Spectator - 10/29/2001

Media Credit: Butch McCartney

Strange sounds, misplaced objects, doors opening and closing. You might have a ghost on your hands. Four girls who used to live at 620 Fifth Ave. did. Seniors Kim Sapetta, Megan Hedegaard, and recent graduates Katie Ditter and Anna Bleck dealt with many oddities at their old house.

The girls sensed there was a ghost in their midst long before they knew the history of their house. Doors would open and close on their own, cold drafts of air would breeze by them and sometimes they would see flashes of light. Once, while sitting at the kitchen table, some dishes exploded with nothing in them.

"We just knew he was there," Sapetta said.

The girls started researching the history of the house and its owners to see if there was a story behind the strange happenings. They went to the university and city library where they learned that the house had been built by Allen Cameron, a prominent lumber baron in Eau Claire in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Cameron died of heat stroke in the bedroom above Supetta's. The funeral was held in the area of Sapetta and Hedegaard's bedroom, which was once the parlor. Ironically, the ghost seemed to target Supetta and Hedegaard more than the other girls living in the house.

Both girls went through three Blugold cards each that year because they were always mysteriously disappearing from their bedrooms. However all of the cards showed up at the end of the year. The girls also had unusual experiences with pizza. Several times a pizza delivery person would show up at their door with a pizza that nobody ordered. The pizzas were always cheese and they always had Sapetta's name on the box.

"We were kind of afraid, but not that he would hurt us," Sapetta said. None of the girls were ever physically affected by the ghost.

But to make things all the more odd, says Sapetta, the ghost affected the tenants living above them in the exact same ways.

"We never talked about it during the year," she aid. "But when we were moving out we asked them about it. The same things happened to them."