Rumors haunt S.J. home
Stockton house a hot spot for reports of the paranormal
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By Christine Teldeschi
Record Staff Writer
October 31, 2008 6:00 AM
STOCKTON - No one lives in the 1925 craftsman-style home at 1002 N. Pershing Ave., but neighbors swear when the evening sun creeps over the tops of trees from Victory Park and hits the castle-like house just right, they see a little girl watching them from an upstairs window.
Rick Freeman, who is spending his retirement snatching and fixing up homes, admits his real estate agent reported the home was rumored to be haunted, but with a shrug and the quick scribble of his signature, the house became his.
ON THE WEB
For more on the Arnold investigation and photos, visit www.alienseekernews.com/
For more information on Haunted Paranormal Investigators International, visit www.hpiparanormal.net.
"We've heard (about the house being haunted) from a lot of people in the neighborhood," Freeman said. "The first thing is 'Oh, you bought the haunted house.' "
Freeman said from the time he bought it, and even more so now, he has been curious about the history of the notoriously spooky home. Freeman is fixing up the home to sell and said he has no plans to spend the night to find out if the rumors are true.
The three bedroom, one-and-a-half bath house has seen its share of short-term residents. The first owner lived there the longest, 14 years. The shortest only stayed four months.
Arthur and Janet Cline were the first inhabitants, moving in in 1927, two years after the home was built. Property records show the Clines lived in the house until the early 1940s.
Perhaps they are responsible for the letter "C" on the front of the exterior chimney. But the "S" in the stained glass windows of the home remains a mystery. Some people say it stands for Stockton.
With rumored histories and ghostly tales, the empty house has taken on a dramatic life of its own.
"Neighbors said people move in and stay for about six months or so, and then they move out," Freeman said. "Somebody told me that sometimes they drive by and see a little girl in one of the dormers. There's no upstairs. There's only an attic."
The castle-like home is well-known among Stockton real estate agents, mostly as a home with a seemingly revolving door.
As soon as Judy Swayze saw the home more than a decade ago, she knew instantly she wanted to buy it.
"We just really were drawn to the house, the architecture and the stained glass 'S' on the front-porch window," Swayze said. She and her husband Thomas moved in 1996.
"Every Halloween, we would have more than 125 kids coming to the house, mainly to ask if the house was haunted," Swayze said.
The Swayzes said their time in the home was peaceful and unremarkable except for one event Thomas Swayze witnessed and then kept secret from his wife for some time.
"There was one instance my husband had where he woke up and there was an old farmer man staring into the bedroom," Judy Swayze said. Thomas Swayze said he can still remember exactly what the man looked like: Thin build, plaid shirt and a 5-o'clock shadow.
"There was no ill feeling or harm from this old farmer," Judy Swayze said. She said her husband delayed in telling her because he didn't want to worry her.
"On several occasions we would get wisps of cigarette smoke in different areas of the house and cold breezes that would come and go," Judy Swayze said. The Swayze's would later move.
"I sold it twice over the years," said Don Nelson of Lela Nelson Realty. Regarding whether 1002 N. Pershing is haunted, Nelson said: "Well, it is."
Nelson, the brother-in-law of Lela Nelson, recalled a mystery when he showed the house one day that continues to perplex him. "It hadn't rained for weeks. ... And so I said, 'OK, we'll go and see the property.' We had no happenings inside (the home), ... but when we came out the porch was full of water. And there were no sprinklers on and no rain," he said. "People say they've gotten cold shutters and stuff when they go in there. That didn't happen to me, but that puddle was there for sure, and it was not the sprinklers."
There is no shortage of ghost stories in Stockton, especially since a few unmarked graveyards have been uncovered during various building projects.
Carmen Young said when she and her newborn moved in with her sister in the 2000 block of F St. in Stockton, she said she experienced something she will never forget.
"After everyone would be asleep, I would hear women talking, pots and pans banging," Young said. "It didn't scare me at the time because my sister's church made tamales weekly to sell for funds towards the church. The next day, before leaving for work, I made a comment to my sister about the noise being made by them in the middle of the night. She answered 'There was no one making tamales last night.'" Young said the nightly banging in the kitchen even woke up her baby and that she was afraid to look in the kitchen. Several incidents occurred, she recalled, such as an open can of paint mysteriously being placed under her as she climbed down a ladder, and resulted with her sticking her foot in it. And one time, after three days of rain, she said she went to the basement and saw that it had flooded. She asked her sister's husband to retrieve the boxed possessions the next day and it was dry. Nothing was damaged.
"I kept on telling my sister, 'This house is haunted,' and she would disregard it," Young said. "The last night I was there, I left running and screaming because I couldn't ignore it anymore."
An old boarding house in the first block of East Maple Street in Stockton made a lasting impression on one longtime resident. A well-known roof inspector in Stockton, who wishes to remain anonymous, said that when he was a teenager he spent a lot of time at a friend's house on Maple.
"We would hear running up and down the stairs and toilets flush," he said. "And no one else would be in the home besides my friend and I. There was a door that would not stay locked in an upstairs bedroom. One day, we decided to figure out what the heck is going on. So, we locked the door, hid the key and put a dresser up against the door. The next day, the door was open and the dresser was moved."
Dolores Crivello said she believes her daughter's home in the 1000 block of Longview Avenue is haunted because she said things happen that cannot be explained.
"The dog stares sometimes in this one spot and the dog barks; lights turn on; a picture falls. ... I see a lot of problems like that, and our TV. I believe in things like that, I do. The dog barks in the back (room), and I see nothing," Crivello said. "Dogs feel things like that, they do."
Crivello points to a back room that is lightly decorated and dim. She said that the dog sometimes will not go into the room but will growl and bark at what seems to be nothing. But Crivello said she feels a cold presence that perhaps cannot be seen with the human eye, but she believes something is lurking in the homes nooks and crannies.
"I tell her (her daughter), and she'll go, 'you're old. You're crazy.' I say 'Ok. Ok. You're not supposed to talk about (stuff) like that, you never know.' I told her 'you never know," Crivello said. She said she sees the happenings as a sign that there is someone else in the home, and they want to be made known. But, she does have faith that peace could return to the home that has much unrest. Although she said the paranormal activity seems harmless, it's better to be safe and bless the home than to be sorry.
She advises her daughter: "'You better come have somebody bless this house or something.' I'm gonna say, 'you better check your house girl... it's a ghost house.' Cause, you never know, you know?"
For some in the religious sector, ghosts and spirits are not trivial.
The Rev. Dean McFalls of St. Mary of the Assumption Church in Stockton said he has been called to several homes regarding ghost-like activity.
"I've had people say they've had their feet grabbed and pulled out of bed," McFalls said. He said those souls who hang around after death may need more prayer or forgiveness. Besides believing that there are things that cannot be explained, he also believes in the power of suggestion, saying the human mind is "potent." He has, however, had to take ghostly matters into his own hands and force an entity out from where it wasn't wanted, and sometimes, "some things happen," he said.
During an entity extraction, McFalls said he enters the room, turns off the lights and prays for the Holy Spirit to descend upon the house, and he asks Christ to protect and rid the discomfort. "I empty my mind," he said.
During one house call, McFalls said he could feel the presence of something or someone amble toward him and heard crying.
With more than 100 investigations under his belt, paranormal expert Paul Dale Roberts is confident he can tell whether a house is haunted. And 1002 N. Pershing Ave., he said, "definitely has something going on."
Roberts leads a group of ghost trackers from throughout the Valley called Haunted and Paranormal Investigators International. The team inspects homes by snapping pictures, using Electronic Voice Phenomena, taking video footage and attempting to communicate with the spirit. Roberts said the group takes a scientific as well as an open-minded approach to its investigations.
"I've met some people who are very, very normal and some people who are off the wall," Roberts said.
Arnold residents Amy and Vince Scotto had contacted celebrity psychic Nancy Bradley about a problem with a trio of ghosts: a boy named Timmy; Vince's ex-girlfriend; and a dark shadowy figure. Bradley passed the investigation on to Roberts, and he took The Record along for the paranormal investigation.
Arriving at the two-story home set in the woods on top of a steep hill, two car loads of investigators grab their equipment and get to work.
Devin Bruce, aka Leatherface, and Tony Gold joined the group of ghost hunters to document any paranormal events for their production company Off the Hook TV, based in Sacramento.
Roberts and his team said they made some findings in the home: the entity knocked several times on a wall when asked; a rocking chair moved on its own; orbs, spherical markings, appeared in scores of photos; blurry video camera images were recorded; and fully-charged electronic camera equipment shut off. Nothing too bloodcurdling for the experts.
The home didn't quite scare the beejeebers out of Gold, but a previous mission in Sonoma made the young producer fear for his life, and sent he and his crew fleeing out the front door.
"There was a voice during a recording that yelled 'Get out.' I ran like a (dog)," he said. "It was a trip."
"I believe there could be activity at this home, but plausible explanations need to be looked at further," Roberts writes of his investigation of the Arnold home. "Digital photographs display unusual orb activity and in one case a strange shadow configuration. ... Orb photographs cannot be deemed paranormal, unless some type of intelligent response by orb(s) can be obtained."
Photographs that have orbs in them widely have been accepted in the photography industry as light refractions, or backscatter. Some, however, believe they have paranormal connections or cannot be explained.
Photography professor Kirstyn Russell of Delta College said if the photo is taken in direct light, orbs can appear in photographs.
"There are so many things that can go wrong in photography,"
Russell said. And there are a lot of photography tricks that can be used as well, she said.
Boston photographer William H. Mumler was exposed as a hoaxer in the late 1800s after some of his "ghosts" were found alive and well.
But, digital cameras are more fool proof, she said, when it comes to orbs showing up in photos. But, are they ghosts?
"I'm not the most techie person," Russell said. "I have had an experience that I never figured out what happened."
Russell said that after her grandmother died, she decided to take photos to document her grandmother's home. In the same lighting and similar shots, six of 36 photos did not have orbs in them, an occurrence that mystified the photographer. The photos, she said, were taken within 24 hours of her grandmother's passing.
Ghosts and spirits are nothing to take lightly, McFalls said, and he advises that no one try to contact a ghost if they believe there is one in their home. "Mind your own business," McFalls said. "Never try to contact the dead."
Roberts has been to the Pershing Avenue home. And, on a recent tour, he reported a ghost moving from one room to another.
With a pair of metal rods guiding him, Roberts walked out to the garage and snapped a few pictures. He decided further study was warranted. Freeman said Roberts and his team are welcome to investigate the home again in December.
Century 21 Exchange agent Sharon Crawford said she's heard the ghost tales of 1002 N. Pershing Ave., and has avoided entering the home. But after being invited over for a friendly gathering, she didn't think it was so bad and was actually quite comfortable.
"Do I believe (in ghosts)? Hey, there could be anything," she said.
Although she has not seen a ghost, Crawford said some homes in Stockton just seem to give off a creepy vibe.
"I walked into a house one day and took three steps, and I was spooked," she said. "I couldn't get out of there fast enough. It was just a feeling. You can walk into a house and get a feeling or feel the karma of the house."
A few former owners of the home said it's not a haunting that made them leave, it's the frightening traffic of Pershing Avenue and the bone-chilling fear of too much repair work.
Kristyne Starling and her husband, Steve, bought the Pershing Avenue home in 2002.
"We loved the house," said Starling, who now lives in San Francisco. "I think a lot of people want to believe it's haunted. We never once had anything weird happen."
The Starlings said they moved to ease evil commutes and to get out of a frightfully bad home loan.
Though she and her husband only lived in the home for four months, Nadine Grinstead, 81, said ghosts didn't scare her away from the home in 1968. It was all the repair work that needed to be done.
Acknowledging "there are weird things that cannot be explained," Grinstead said she didn't think the Pershing Avenue home was haunted.
When John Demshar purchased the home in the 1980s, he heard tales of a ghost that would rearrange furniture and make things go bump in the night. Demshar said he doesn't believe the home is haunted by a ghost. "We asked it to join us for dinner and it never showed. We welcomed it but it didn't take us up on our offer."
Because of changes to federal home disclosure laws when he sold the home in the 1990s, Demshar had to list the home as rumored to be haunted.
Some agents in Stockton say such required property disclosures stop them from showing homes. Homes that are reported haunted keep Kim Currieri away. The real estate agent from Avenue Realty said houses with a stigma are harder to sell, and he is likely to not represent or buy a home for that reason. They also are considered a nuisance by neighbors, he said.
Crawford, the Century 21 agent, said she has had many clients who will not buy homes with certain numbers or that are facing a certain direction. Some homeowners will go as far as petitioning the city to change the number of the address of their home, she said.
The thing about ghosts is that there is a lack of what some scientists would classify as hard evidence that these entities in fact exist. Many juicy stories and freaky sightings are spread around faster than one can say 'boo,' but proof is difficult to come by.
One legend of the Pershing Avenue home is that a man, who built the home and helped build the Hotel Stockton as well, hung himself in a closet after his fiancée left him. However, the short closets in the home would seem to make the ghastly deed impossible, and a search through old newspapers, county and city property records of the home do not show support for this tale of unrequited love.
There are two dormers, or faux windows, outside the attic on the front of Freeman's investment home. A couple of Stockton realtors and passers-by say they have seen the ghostly figure of a child or woman peering out from the home. But, the dormers have glass on the outside and wooden shutters on the inside, making looking in or out of them difficult. The spacious attic is littered only with giant rat traps, insulation and an occasional spider web.
During a stretch of time when the Pershing home was vacant, a fire apparently broke out in the third bedroom caused by some homeless people who took residence there, according to former Pershing resident Dennis Nousaine. Minor damage from that fire still can be seen from inside the basement.
Nousaine, a physician now living in Jackson, also said that a story about a person being found dead in the basement of the home was created by the owner of the home at that time to keep children from playing in the vacant home so repairs could be made and the property could be sold - creepy basement and all.
Rumors of lights turning on and off could be chalked up to the homes old electrical wiring, and that 'weird feeling' some say they get from the home could be from the slant in the floor caused by the wonky foundation.
But what about Nousaine's account of some doors slamming in the middle of the night. Could it have been a Delta breeze?
"There's always been something going on (paranormally) in that house," Don Nelson said.
Freeman has agreed to allow Roberts to investigate the home Dec. 13 for another round of ghost seeking, much to the delight of Freeman's daughter, Bobbie Lawson.
"I'm excited," Lawson said. "I can't wait." Lawson said she believes the home is cursed, as strange, personal things have happened in her family since her father purchased the home.
But ghost tales aren't keeping residents away from the Pershing Avenue dwelling.
"We really liked the house," Swayze said. "In fact, about a year ago, it was back on the market. We were kicking around the idea of buying it again."
"It's a beautiful home," Nousaine said. "It deserves to be restored and lived in."
Nousaine said the busyness of the street was too much after the birth of his son, so the family decided to move to a more rural setting. "If I could pick up the house and move it into the hills, I would."
Undeterred by ghosts so far, Freeman said the home will be up for sale once he makes some needed repairs. Having the home inspected for spooks doesn't bother him. He said he's confident the home will sell and that people will respect the home for its fine craftsmanship.
"It'll be a nice house when it's finished," Freeman said. "Maybe I'll unearth something. I've been waiting to find something," he said.
Contact Christine Teldeschi at (209) 943-8573 or cteldeschi@recordnet.com.
Stockton house a hot spot for reports of the paranormal
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By Christine Teldeschi
Record Staff Writer
October 31, 2008 6:00 AM
STOCKTON - No one lives in the 1925 craftsman-style home at 1002 N. Pershing Ave., but neighbors swear when the evening sun creeps over the tops of trees from Victory Park and hits the castle-like house just right, they see a little girl watching them from an upstairs window.
Rick Freeman, who is spending his retirement snatching and fixing up homes, admits his real estate agent reported the home was rumored to be haunted, but with a shrug and the quick scribble of his signature, the house became his.
ON THE WEB
For more on the Arnold investigation and photos, visit www.alienseekernews.com/
For more information on Haunted Paranormal Investigators International, visit www.hpiparanormal.net.
"We've heard (about the house being haunted) from a lot of people in the neighborhood," Freeman said. "The first thing is 'Oh, you bought the haunted house.' "
Freeman said from the time he bought it, and even more so now, he has been curious about the history of the notoriously spooky home. Freeman is fixing up the home to sell and said he has no plans to spend the night to find out if the rumors are true.
The three bedroom, one-and-a-half bath house has seen its share of short-term residents. The first owner lived there the longest, 14 years. The shortest only stayed four months.
Arthur and Janet Cline were the first inhabitants, moving in in 1927, two years after the home was built. Property records show the Clines lived in the house until the early 1940s.
Perhaps they are responsible for the letter "C" on the front of the exterior chimney. But the "S" in the stained glass windows of the home remains a mystery. Some people say it stands for Stockton.
With rumored histories and ghostly tales, the empty house has taken on a dramatic life of its own.
"Neighbors said people move in and stay for about six months or so, and then they move out," Freeman said. "Somebody told me that sometimes they drive by and see a little girl in one of the dormers. There's no upstairs. There's only an attic."
The castle-like home is well-known among Stockton real estate agents, mostly as a home with a seemingly revolving door.
As soon as Judy Swayze saw the home more than a decade ago, she knew instantly she wanted to buy it.
"We just really were drawn to the house, the architecture and the stained glass 'S' on the front-porch window," Swayze said. She and her husband Thomas moved in 1996.
"Every Halloween, we would have more than 125 kids coming to the house, mainly to ask if the house was haunted," Swayze said.
The Swayzes said their time in the home was peaceful and unremarkable except for one event Thomas Swayze witnessed and then kept secret from his wife for some time.
"There was one instance my husband had where he woke up and there was an old farmer man staring into the bedroom," Judy Swayze said. Thomas Swayze said he can still remember exactly what the man looked like: Thin build, plaid shirt and a 5-o'clock shadow.
"There was no ill feeling or harm from this old farmer," Judy Swayze said. She said her husband delayed in telling her because he didn't want to worry her.
"On several occasions we would get wisps of cigarette smoke in different areas of the house and cold breezes that would come and go," Judy Swayze said. The Swayze's would later move.
"I sold it twice over the years," said Don Nelson of Lela Nelson Realty. Regarding whether 1002 N. Pershing is haunted, Nelson said: "Well, it is."
Nelson, the brother-in-law of Lela Nelson, recalled a mystery when he showed the house one day that continues to perplex him. "It hadn't rained for weeks. ... And so I said, 'OK, we'll go and see the property.' We had no happenings inside (the home), ... but when we came out the porch was full of water. And there were no sprinklers on and no rain," he said. "People say they've gotten cold shutters and stuff when they go in there. That didn't happen to me, but that puddle was there for sure, and it was not the sprinklers."
There is no shortage of ghost stories in Stockton, especially since a few unmarked graveyards have been uncovered during various building projects.
Carmen Young said when she and her newborn moved in with her sister in the 2000 block of F St. in Stockton, she said she experienced something she will never forget.
"After everyone would be asleep, I would hear women talking, pots and pans banging," Young said. "It didn't scare me at the time because my sister's church made tamales weekly to sell for funds towards the church. The next day, before leaving for work, I made a comment to my sister about the noise being made by them in the middle of the night. She answered 'There was no one making tamales last night.'" Young said the nightly banging in the kitchen even woke up her baby and that she was afraid to look in the kitchen. Several incidents occurred, she recalled, such as an open can of paint mysteriously being placed under her as she climbed down a ladder, and resulted with her sticking her foot in it. And one time, after three days of rain, she said she went to the basement and saw that it had flooded. She asked her sister's husband to retrieve the boxed possessions the next day and it was dry. Nothing was damaged.
"I kept on telling my sister, 'This house is haunted,' and she would disregard it," Young said. "The last night I was there, I left running and screaming because I couldn't ignore it anymore."
An old boarding house in the first block of East Maple Street in Stockton made a lasting impression on one longtime resident. A well-known roof inspector in Stockton, who wishes to remain anonymous, said that when he was a teenager he spent a lot of time at a friend's house on Maple.
"We would hear running up and down the stairs and toilets flush," he said. "And no one else would be in the home besides my friend and I. There was a door that would not stay locked in an upstairs bedroom. One day, we decided to figure out what the heck is going on. So, we locked the door, hid the key and put a dresser up against the door. The next day, the door was open and the dresser was moved."
Dolores Crivello said she believes her daughter's home in the 1000 block of Longview Avenue is haunted because she said things happen that cannot be explained.
"The dog stares sometimes in this one spot and the dog barks; lights turn on; a picture falls. ... I see a lot of problems like that, and our TV. I believe in things like that, I do. The dog barks in the back (room), and I see nothing," Crivello said. "Dogs feel things like that, they do."
Crivello points to a back room that is lightly decorated and dim. She said that the dog sometimes will not go into the room but will growl and bark at what seems to be nothing. But Crivello said she feels a cold presence that perhaps cannot be seen with the human eye, but she believes something is lurking in the homes nooks and crannies.
"I tell her (her daughter), and she'll go, 'you're old. You're crazy.' I say 'Ok. Ok. You're not supposed to talk about (stuff) like that, you never know.' I told her 'you never know," Crivello said. She said she sees the happenings as a sign that there is someone else in the home, and they want to be made known. But, she does have faith that peace could return to the home that has much unrest. Although she said the paranormal activity seems harmless, it's better to be safe and bless the home than to be sorry.
She advises her daughter: "'You better come have somebody bless this house or something.' I'm gonna say, 'you better check your house girl... it's a ghost house.' Cause, you never know, you know?"
For some in the religious sector, ghosts and spirits are not trivial.
The Rev. Dean McFalls of St. Mary of the Assumption Church in Stockton said he has been called to several homes regarding ghost-like activity.
"I've had people say they've had their feet grabbed and pulled out of bed," McFalls said. He said those souls who hang around after death may need more prayer or forgiveness. Besides believing that there are things that cannot be explained, he also believes in the power of suggestion, saying the human mind is "potent." He has, however, had to take ghostly matters into his own hands and force an entity out from where it wasn't wanted, and sometimes, "some things happen," he said.
During an entity extraction, McFalls said he enters the room, turns off the lights and prays for the Holy Spirit to descend upon the house, and he asks Christ to protect and rid the discomfort. "I empty my mind," he said.
During one house call, McFalls said he could feel the presence of something or someone amble toward him and heard crying.
With more than 100 investigations under his belt, paranormal expert Paul Dale Roberts is confident he can tell whether a house is haunted. And 1002 N. Pershing Ave., he said, "definitely has something going on."
Roberts leads a group of ghost trackers from throughout the Valley called Haunted and Paranormal Investigators International. The team inspects homes by snapping pictures, using Electronic Voice Phenomena, taking video footage and attempting to communicate with the spirit. Roberts said the group takes a scientific as well as an open-minded approach to its investigations.
"I've met some people who are very, very normal and some people who are off the wall," Roberts said.
Arnold residents Amy and Vince Scotto had contacted celebrity psychic Nancy Bradley about a problem with a trio of ghosts: a boy named Timmy; Vince's ex-girlfriend; and a dark shadowy figure. Bradley passed the investigation on to Roberts, and he took The Record along for the paranormal investigation.
Arriving at the two-story home set in the woods on top of a steep hill, two car loads of investigators grab their equipment and get to work.
Devin Bruce, aka Leatherface, and Tony Gold joined the group of ghost hunters to document any paranormal events for their production company Off the Hook TV, based in Sacramento.
Roberts and his team said they made some findings in the home: the entity knocked several times on a wall when asked; a rocking chair moved on its own; orbs, spherical markings, appeared in scores of photos; blurry video camera images were recorded; and fully-charged electronic camera equipment shut off. Nothing too bloodcurdling for the experts.
The home didn't quite scare the beejeebers out of Gold, but a previous mission in Sonoma made the young producer fear for his life, and sent he and his crew fleeing out the front door.
"There was a voice during a recording that yelled 'Get out.' I ran like a (dog)," he said. "It was a trip."
"I believe there could be activity at this home, but plausible explanations need to be looked at further," Roberts writes of his investigation of the Arnold home. "Digital photographs display unusual orb activity and in one case a strange shadow configuration. ... Orb photographs cannot be deemed paranormal, unless some type of intelligent response by orb(s) can be obtained."
Photographs that have orbs in them widely have been accepted in the photography industry as light refractions, or backscatter. Some, however, believe they have paranormal connections or cannot be explained.
Photography professor Kirstyn Russell of Delta College said if the photo is taken in direct light, orbs can appear in photographs.
"There are so many things that can go wrong in photography,"
Russell said. And there are a lot of photography tricks that can be used as well, she said.
Boston photographer William H. Mumler was exposed as a hoaxer in the late 1800s after some of his "ghosts" were found alive and well.
But, digital cameras are more fool proof, she said, when it comes to orbs showing up in photos. But, are they ghosts?
"I'm not the most techie person," Russell said. "I have had an experience that I never figured out what happened."
Russell said that after her grandmother died, she decided to take photos to document her grandmother's home. In the same lighting and similar shots, six of 36 photos did not have orbs in them, an occurrence that mystified the photographer. The photos, she said, were taken within 24 hours of her grandmother's passing.
Ghosts and spirits are nothing to take lightly, McFalls said, and he advises that no one try to contact a ghost if they believe there is one in their home. "Mind your own business," McFalls said. "Never try to contact the dead."
Roberts has been to the Pershing Avenue home. And, on a recent tour, he reported a ghost moving from one room to another.
With a pair of metal rods guiding him, Roberts walked out to the garage and snapped a few pictures. He decided further study was warranted. Freeman said Roberts and his team are welcome to investigate the home again in December.
Century 21 Exchange agent Sharon Crawford said she's heard the ghost tales of 1002 N. Pershing Ave., and has avoided entering the home. But after being invited over for a friendly gathering, she didn't think it was so bad and was actually quite comfortable.
"Do I believe (in ghosts)? Hey, there could be anything," she said.
Although she has not seen a ghost, Crawford said some homes in Stockton just seem to give off a creepy vibe.
"I walked into a house one day and took three steps, and I was spooked," she said. "I couldn't get out of there fast enough. It was just a feeling. You can walk into a house and get a feeling or feel the karma of the house."
A few former owners of the home said it's not a haunting that made them leave, it's the frightening traffic of Pershing Avenue and the bone-chilling fear of too much repair work.
Kristyne Starling and her husband, Steve, bought the Pershing Avenue home in 2002.
"We loved the house," said Starling, who now lives in San Francisco. "I think a lot of people want to believe it's haunted. We never once had anything weird happen."
The Starlings said they moved to ease evil commutes and to get out of a frightfully bad home loan.
Though she and her husband only lived in the home for four months, Nadine Grinstead, 81, said ghosts didn't scare her away from the home in 1968. It was all the repair work that needed to be done.
Acknowledging "there are weird things that cannot be explained," Grinstead said she didn't think the Pershing Avenue home was haunted.
When John Demshar purchased the home in the 1980s, he heard tales of a ghost that would rearrange furniture and make things go bump in the night. Demshar said he doesn't believe the home is haunted by a ghost. "We asked it to join us for dinner and it never showed. We welcomed it but it didn't take us up on our offer."
Because of changes to federal home disclosure laws when he sold the home in the 1990s, Demshar had to list the home as rumored to be haunted.
Some agents in Stockton say such required property disclosures stop them from showing homes. Homes that are reported haunted keep Kim Currieri away. The real estate agent from Avenue Realty said houses with a stigma are harder to sell, and he is likely to not represent or buy a home for that reason. They also are considered a nuisance by neighbors, he said.
Crawford, the Century 21 agent, said she has had many clients who will not buy homes with certain numbers or that are facing a certain direction. Some homeowners will go as far as petitioning the city to change the number of the address of their home, she said.
The thing about ghosts is that there is a lack of what some scientists would classify as hard evidence that these entities in fact exist. Many juicy stories and freaky sightings are spread around faster than one can say 'boo,' but proof is difficult to come by.
One legend of the Pershing Avenue home is that a man, who built the home and helped build the Hotel Stockton as well, hung himself in a closet after his fiancée left him. However, the short closets in the home would seem to make the ghastly deed impossible, and a search through old newspapers, county and city property records of the home do not show support for this tale of unrequited love.
There are two dormers, or faux windows, outside the attic on the front of Freeman's investment home. A couple of Stockton realtors and passers-by say they have seen the ghostly figure of a child or woman peering out from the home. But, the dormers have glass on the outside and wooden shutters on the inside, making looking in or out of them difficult. The spacious attic is littered only with giant rat traps, insulation and an occasional spider web.
During a stretch of time when the Pershing home was vacant, a fire apparently broke out in the third bedroom caused by some homeless people who took residence there, according to former Pershing resident Dennis Nousaine. Minor damage from that fire still can be seen from inside the basement.
Nousaine, a physician now living in Jackson, also said that a story about a person being found dead in the basement of the home was created by the owner of the home at that time to keep children from playing in the vacant home so repairs could be made and the property could be sold - creepy basement and all.
Rumors of lights turning on and off could be chalked up to the homes old electrical wiring, and that 'weird feeling' some say they get from the home could be from the slant in the floor caused by the wonky foundation.
But what about Nousaine's account of some doors slamming in the middle of the night. Could it have been a Delta breeze?
"There's always been something going on (paranormally) in that house," Don Nelson said.
Freeman has agreed to allow Roberts to investigate the home Dec. 13 for another round of ghost seeking, much to the delight of Freeman's daughter, Bobbie Lawson.
"I'm excited," Lawson said. "I can't wait." Lawson said she believes the home is cursed, as strange, personal things have happened in her family since her father purchased the home.
But ghost tales aren't keeping residents away from the Pershing Avenue dwelling.
"We really liked the house," Swayze said. "In fact, about a year ago, it was back on the market. We were kicking around the idea of buying it again."
"It's a beautiful home," Nousaine said. "It deserves to be restored and lived in."
Nousaine said the busyness of the street was too much after the birth of his son, so the family decided to move to a more rural setting. "If I could pick up the house and move it into the hills, I would."
Undeterred by ghosts so far, Freeman said the home will be up for sale once he makes some needed repairs. Having the home inspected for spooks doesn't bother him. He said he's confident the home will sell and that people will respect the home for its fine craftsmanship.
"It'll be a nice house when it's finished," Freeman said. "Maybe I'll unearth something. I've been waiting to find something," he said.
Contact Christine Teldeschi at (209) 943-8573 or cteldeschi@recordnet.com.
posted by Read All Books @ 10:56 AM
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