Witching Hour

There’s one in every town. The spooky house on the corner. The haunted graveyard. Mary Hatchet’s house. Long Island has no shortage of ghastly tales and frightening local legends.

Maybe the most famous haunted house story of all time originates here, in the sleepy hamlet of Amityville. The home in which Ronald DFeo brutally murdered his family in 1974 became the site of the Amityville Horror, the subject of numerous books, documentaries and movies.

But when sitting around telling stories, it becomes apparent that LI is a hotbed of paranormal activity. So, in the spirit of Halloween, writers for the Press decided to visit some of LI’s most famously haunted places on both midnights surrounding Friday, October 13. Thankfully, they all came back safe and sound, but all were pretty freaked out by their assignments.

Here are their tales. Rest assured, it will be a long time before they accept such an assignment again.

The Amityville Horror House

No Halloween Decorations Needed By Kristine “hacksaw” Haugsjaa

With the 2005 movie remake of The Amityville Horror, another generation was exposed to one of LI’s best-known horror stories, the Amityville Horror House. But some have yet to hear the tale.

It started in November 1974 at the Defeos’ Ocean Avenue home in Amityville. The oldest son, Ron Defeo Jr., 23, shot and killed his parents, his two brothers and two sisters. Ronald later claimed that voices had told him to kill the family in their sleep.

About a year later, in December 1975, the Lutz family bought the house. Now, why anyone who knew about that murder would want to call the place home is beyond me. But they moved in, and a 28-day real-life horror show began.

They told of locked windows and doors that kept opening. The youngest daughter, Missy, saw the red eyes of a demonic pig outside her window. Mr. Lutz saw a face—later identified as Ronald—on a red wall smelling of blood. After that, the family left.

Since then, several different families have lived there. There have been no reported horrors since the Lutzs’ story.

On Friday, Oct. 13, at midnight, some friends and I visited that infamous street. The neighboring homes were covered with Halloween decorations. But No. 108, its address sign changed from No. 112 to fool snoopers, had the best decorations: None.

I guess that when you live in the Amityville Horror House, you never have to decorate for Halloween, since the house is the Halloween decoration. The gloomy vibe, distant view of Amityville Creek and eerie darkness draw people who show up with curiosity and leave with goose bumps.

As we left, suddenly, a mysterious cloud appeared in the middle of the road. There was no fog outside, but the cloud floated there in perfect view. Whatever it was is still a mystery. Maybe it was smoke from a car, or maybe…it was Ron, making sure that I did not leave without getting that creepy event I hoped for.

Midnight At Mary’s Grave

Howling In The Night By ApRhell Jimenez

Just about every Long Islander has heard of Mary’s Grave. People talk about different gravesite locations, but I believe I know the real one.

I visited it at midnight on Friday, the 13th of October, at the end of Shep Jones Lane, a dirt road off Route 25A (Northern Boulevard), where St. James borders Head of the Harbor. Treetops shut out any moonlight, creating an eerie effect.

I grew up frightened by the legend, so I took along two fearless friends. One sat in the car, whispering, “It looks like we fell off the face of the earth.” Jenn, curious about the heavy feeling in her chest, asked, “Why do I feel so weird?” I revealed Mary’s story.

In the 17th century, Mary and her family had been traveling, when, during a terrible storm, her parents caught pneumonia. Mary and her dog sought help at the nearby Jones Estate farm. They followed Mary to help her parents, but her parents had died. The Joneses took in Mary and her dog, and Mary worked on the farm to earn her keep and lived in a stone shack near the house.

But Mary hid a secret. Shep Jones was raping her nightly, threatening to kill her if she told. Eventually Mary had enough. When Jones visited her, she said she was going to tell. He attacked Mary, and her dog started barking. Jones turned, shot the dog and left. Overcome with grief, Mary wrote a letter detailing the abuse, and hung herself from a tree. The next day, Mrs. Jones found the bodies and the letter. Outraged, embarrassed, she told the police that Mary had desired Shep, and when he turned her down, she killed herself and her dog.

Ever since, Mary has tried to clear her name, causing cars to stall in front of her grave, and filling photos with glowing eyes and ghostly figures. Our car did not stop, but there were strange occurrences.

We heard Mary’s dog, barking to defend Mary. We called Mary’s name, but never heard her voice, as some have claimed. We heard nothing. No wind, no bugs—just silence.

The creepiest thing, though: a catatonic-looking groundsman stood at the road entrance, expressionless. Minutes later, he had disappeared.

Centereach High School Track

The Ghostly Runner By Jac-o-lyntern Gallucci

Sitting in the middle of a desolate field at midnight, on Friday the 13th, surrounded by woods, isn’t the most relaxing experience. Now, add to the mix: midnight, Friday the 13th, shrieking birds flying overhead, strange shadows and eerie patches of fog, and you have all the bases of “creepy” pretty well covered.

But what really gives Centereach High School a place in Long Island’s haunted past is the reality lying between the smoke and mirrors of local legend. It centers on a murder many say has left a different kind of mascot on the school’s football field—a ghost.

On Jan. 3, 1997, off-duty firefighter James Halverson, 30, was found dead by his pregnant wife on the high school track. William Sodders, a 21-year-old with an obsession for re-enacting violent movie scenes, had been hiding in the woods, watching Halverson run. Pretending to tie his shoe, he stepped into Halverson’s path and shot him point blank in the chest.

Many have reported ghostly apparitions on the track ever since—a man running around lane five late at night, and the strong sensation of being watched from the south woods. Although they are unaware of what happened nine years ago, visitors don’t remain on the south bleachers long before this feeling takes over, so the story goes.

The next day, I passed by the track one more time, to catch the end of a morning football game.

On the north side of the field, a crowd in the stands cheered for the home team. On the south side, the visiting crowd cheered—but they all stood on the field, scattered. They would not sit in the bleachers.

Fire Island Lighthouse

The Keeper’s Curse By “grim” Bolger

Being alone at the beach at midnight on Friday the 13th can be unnerving, but listening intently to the wind howling off the ocean for sounds of the past to come to life sends chills, regardless of the cold. The landscape surrounding the Fire Island Lighthouse, home to more than a few reported paranormal manifestations, might as well be a bone yard, given its eerie semblance under the dim light of the last quarter of the moon, obscured by rolling clouds.

I’m not sure if it’s laughing I hear or my imagination run amok, but I’ve heard the stories about audible aberrations of ghostly giggling, moaning and footsteps that echo through the lonesome black-and-white tower. I peer over my shoulder, but there’s nothing but more darkness, then the creepy alternating flash of light from the nearly 150-year-old blinking tower 168 feet above me.

As legend has it, in the 1800s, Nathaniel Smith, the keeper of this beacon, is said to have committed suicide while the present-day tower was being built, and is now haunting the property. Another tale is that his daughter died here and her ghost spooks the house. Some say that windows in the lantern room and the watch room atop the lighthouse have minds of their own, as does an extremely heavy door, which takes at least two people to move yet opens and closes by itself.

If a Smith family tragedy has actually spawned resident spirits, this reporter isn’t going to find out tonight. The police have chased me out of the park, which closed at sunset. To explore further, I’m attending the ghost story tour here on Oct. 28, where only the brave will find out what it’s like to climb the long spiral staircase at night.

Kings Park Psychiatric Center/D.S. Shanahan’s

Tortured Inmates And A Brothel Ghost By Nora “tricks and Treats” Cronin

D.S. Shanahan’s is a fun little place: full bar, cool owners and a humongous, abandoned, haunted insane asylum across the street. The asylum, on Old Dock Road in Kings Park, is Kings Park Psychiatric Center, named for the first patients of the late 1800s, transferred from Kings County to recoup their senses—or receive the nation’s first prefrontal lobotomies and weird “experimental” treatment.

Originally a hospital building, the bar’s legend comes from its brothel days. Supposedly, the ghost of an underage human can be seen wandering the bar; it is the brothel madam’s child, killed as retaliation by an unhappy customer.

At the midnight welcoming Friday, Oct. 13, I stood outside the bar, toasting (literally) my good fortune in receiving this assignment. Then I tackled the other half of the investigation, Building 93. I had been there before, during daylight, but had never seen its enormous shadow rise off the road at witching hour. I approached the building with extreme caution. My flashlight revealed what I was petrified to see—an abandoned structure, windows gaping open into rooms that once held 9,000 mental patients said to be tortured, including German World War II prisoners. I believe that there are at least 9,000 ghosts here. The closer I got, the more I felt like I couldn’t breathe, as if 18,000 hands were choking me. I expected anything to happen: a squatter, mistaking me for a cop, could attack me; a ghost, identifying me as the evil nurse who had lobotomized him, could suck me into another dimension, where I would be tortured; the ghost of the madam’s child could trap me inside, to be its surrogate mother forevermore; and so on.

Finally, my madness was whisked away with a quick burst of wind on my face, hastening me to leave those ghosts in my dust. I ran as fast as I could back to my car.

Mount Misery Road/Sweet Hollow Road

Shining Eyes And Hell Hounds By Nora “tricks and Treats” Cronin

Since most Long Island adults remember “driving around” in high school, it’s not surprising that a road is the birthplace of some of LI’s most frightening stories. One famous tale about the Mount Misery/Sweet Hollow Road area in Huntington tells of the police officer—with half his head missing—who stops cars. Other stories describe a dog-like hellhound that walks on two legs, or Satanist wood-dwellers who communicate by pulling down branches and bending them into coded messages. Some tell of a man butchering travelers with a hatchet, others of a bride who died there on her wedding day. Her ghost still haunts Sweet Hollow until it disappears into Melville Cemetery.

Personally, the romantic in me loves the haunting bride story. I arrived at the midnight ending Friday, Oct. 13, intending to see her ghost. But, like her nuptials, the sighting was not to be. Instead, the crazed driver of a speeding car, its high beams blinding me, tried to run me off the road. (Where was the half-headed cop then?) And, a mysterious driver photographed me photographing the cemetery.

After ditching my car, I marched through Mount Misery’s woods, clutching my camera. I thought that ghosts might be scared of light, à la Gremlins, and I could blind them with my flash. At the sight of a man with shining eyes in the forest, I screamed. I was sorry I had doubted the “hatchet man” story, and thought I would be dragged off into the ninth layer of hell, until I snapped a picture. The flash revealed the “apparition” to be jeans and a sweatshirt, probably tacked up by kids, to scare idiots like me who went trampling through the woods at midnight. Still, there is something abnormal about those shining eyes; I’ll let the reader be the judge.

The Love-Scorned Ghost Of Raynham Hall

Not As Brave As The Girl Scouts By “GRim” Bolger

Before departing for Raynham Hall, the site of numerous ghost sightings, some friends and I get directions from my friend’s home. She reminds us that the two previous owners of her house committed suicide there. OK, we’re creeped out already and we haven’t even reached our haunted destination. We double our pace and head to Oyster Bay and the small house, set amid the old-timey downtown area of the village, while I reiterate the reports of Sally Townsend, the woman scorned by a British soldier during the Revolutionary War. She is said to still walk the same halls.

We arrive at midnight, and the well-lit street is disarming and the front of the house doesn’t appear threatening. But since it is early morning, getting inside to meet and greet the otherworldly beings is impossible. We investigate what we can from the stoop, but the feeling that we’re being watched overwhelms us. The street is barren, however. Some Girl Scouts, undoubtedly braver than we, apparently had a sleepover that night in the house, which is now a museum; but we couldn’t bear to be near the property. Although we realize that the mannequin in the window is supposed to look like a ghostly woman watching, we get the sudden dread that we shouldn’t be here.

The house has a virtual family of ghosts, who occasionally torment the volunteers who work there, we learn. A spirit who may have been a servant there in the 19th century has been seen repeatedly. Doors open and close inexplicably, perhaps the will of a phantom boy. Many report feeling cold spots inside. Some say that they smell ghostly odors, like that of perfume worn by the dead, or of baking in the kitchen. Then there’s the one upstairs room that nobody wants to enter, where a presence insists on no visitors. To be sure, on All Hallows’ Eve, this house of lost souls must have no vacancy.

Red Candles, Red Sidewalk

Massapequa Satan House By Nicole “the Ripper” Ortiz

At midnight on Friday, Oct. 13, I stopped my car just blocks from home, to visit the popular Massapequa Satan House. I’ve often driven past the dark, castle-like house with the red-painted sidewalk, never slowing out of fear. I’ve heard many stories, so I didn’t want to stop—until tonight, the perfect time to be in front of “Satan House.” The stories I’ve heard about the place, called the “Massapequa Hell/Witch House” by some, were from the fathers of several friends. Both men were volunteer firefighters and had visited the house. My brother also had stories about the woman living there. One firefighter went there to put out a backyard fire. The firefighters went into the house, and what was there shocked and confused them. A fence ran through the inside, and they believed that the people living there were into witchcraft. They said that the woman seemed “weird,” but didn’t elaborate. On another occasion, they had to take the woman to the hospital. She supposedly kicked and screamed and threw a fit, then yelled and cursed at the ambulance driver, complaining that he was driving too fast and recklessly. Inside the house, they said, the windows were covered with funeral draping (one said it was the material used to line coffins). They told of satanic pictures, and red candles lighting the house. The red-candle story explains why at night, the house windows seem to glow red. My brother had also had run-ins with her. She yelled at him from her door because he and his friends were on the sidewalk near her house. She yelled until they ran away. These stories could be exaggerations or complete rumors. However, whenever I see the house glowing red at night, I won’t pause for more than a few seconds. Even if the stories are urban myth, the house gives me shivers. Roslyn United Methodist Church Graveyard Shift Headstones On Night Patrol By “Tomb” Durante While smarter people were relaxing in their homes at midnight on Friday, Oct. 13, I was sitting alone in the historic cemetery of the Searing-Roslyn United Methodist church in Albertson. From the moment I jumped over the white picket fence surrounding the church, I felt unwelcome. Large trees cast ominous shadows on the headstones, some new and some chiseled smooth with time. The gravemarkers seemed to close in on me like an army of concrete soldiers. The church, on I.U. Willets Road, was built more than 200 years ago and is the oldest Methodist church on Long Island. Today, your eyes play tricks on you as you drive or walk past the churchyard. Some people swear that they’ve seen a figure moving around late at night. This night, the overwhelming wind (the strongest I’ve experienced since Hurricane Gilbert tore through my backyard in the ’80s) was turning a cool autumn evening into a frigid icebox. As I tried to get comfortable sitting in the grass adjacent to the grave markers, the streetlight above me suddenly shorted out, taking away the only light I had. I shuddered in fear and despair. Leaves were blowing in my face as I pulled my windbreaker tighter and crossed my arms for warmth. I heard dogs barking and other strange noises while I squinted into the night, struggling to see what lurked in the darkness and furious wind. I decided to walk around the cemetery, and the barking sounded closer. I was convinced that the bones of these departed souls were not happy with their most recent observer. The bushes around me rustled as though a massive creature hid behind them. My heartbeat was my only movement. The amount of time between my immobility and the lightning-quick scamper to my car was unclear, but I ran like I was being hunted. I’m not likely to be disturbing the dead again anytime soon.