Odessa Catacombs

The Odessa Catacombs, which are indeed mines not catacombs, are located in Odessa, Ukraine and attract extreme tourists, despite the number of warnings, they stretch around 2,500 kilometres and are larger and longer than those or Rome and Paris. The labyrinth of tunnels is largely unknown and unmapped, as such only a small percentage are opened via the Museum of Partisan Glory.

The tunnels materials were good for cheap construction, during World War II the tunnels served as a hiding grounds for Soviet Partisans and in 1961 the Poisk Club was created in order to explore the tunnels to map them, in keeping with the old tradition there’s really no maps by others instead clues and symbols on the walls are used to traverse them. The tunnels continued to be mined for the rich resource of limestone and so kept expanding.

The catacombs hit the news because another explorer found the remains of a body. In 2007 an urban explorer, Eugene, made a morbid discovery of a corpse of a 19-year old women. She had been at a New Years Eve party, 2005 and they had been partying there all night. At some point the woman was separated from the group and when they left the next morning they were unaware that she had not left as well. This young lady died alone, lost and probably from things like dehydration due to not having supplies and maybe even intoxicated to a high degree.

Coroners findings say that she had spent three days dehydrating before she came to the end of her life. Her name from sources around the internet suggest she was known as Masha. On other sites her name is listed as Mariya and it’s been a lot of internet trawling to try and work out more information. Eugene did not tell the police her location, nor did other explorers and she was around 5km away from the area, eventually the police located her because she was was shown in location and they managed to get her out and this is sometimes where the story lines get blurred.

She is not the only person to have been found there, there have been older mummified corpses found and the cold air and dry conditions lead to good preservation. There have also been old World War II era rifles and grenades. In 2015 two teenagers went missing but from what little I could find I worked out they were rescued.

So I couldn’t find her surname or if she is Masha or Mariya, I guess her name has been lost amongst various media reports and outlets. If you can confirm her name I would like to be able to put that to this article.

By Полищук Денис Анатольевич – Own work, CC BY 2.5, Link

Tent Girl

Barbara Ann (Hackman) Taylor, ‘Bobbie’ was initially an unknown American woman who was referred to as Tent Girl.

Wilbur Riddle was out in Georgetown, Kentucky, on 17th May 1968 searching for glass insulators at the side of U.S Route 25. He was there to work as a water well-driller and was handed a note to pass some time until his boss arrived, he spotted some telephone workers and they were discarding the glass insulators as part of an upgrade program. He knew they would be useful for a friend so went to collect them.

He was on his way back from his collecting when something caught his eye as he headed back up the dirt track. The smell alone gave away there was nothing good to be found, he nudged a wrapped up green canvas and the body rolled down the slope. It exposed the body of a decomposing woman wrapped up in a heavy green tarpaulin. The material was the type of thing used in the manufacturing of tents, hence the identification.

Riddle immediately drove two miles down the road to alert the Scott County Sheriff, Bob Vance. Vance and his team then came to see and looked into the matter further, her eyes had already rotted away and her flesh was mottled, the poor woman was too decomposed to get a full fingerprint and they had to take one and rehydrate it with chemicals to attempt to gain anything at all.

They were unable to fully establish a cause of death, the best theory to date is that Bobbie was somehow knocked unconscious and rolled up and confined, eventually dying of asphyxiation. There was a section of white towelling and the green canvas sent over to the FBI laboratories in Washington for further analysis but at that point there was not very much more they felt they could do.

A lead came up about her in June, 1968 when her description matched enough features to show up missing Pasadena girl, Debbie Krane, who was last seen getting into the car of her 17 year-old boyfriend, Carl Colby. The 15 year old had gone missing March 3^rd, 1968 and with the period of her death being loose enough they decided to ask her parents to come to see if they were able to identify her.

Debbie Krane’s dental records loosely matched that of the girl and at that point the police must have felt they were on track to finding her identity, then an anonymous call came in that said she was alive and well in Bradford, Pennsylvania. A long drive out to Bradford found Krane was alive and well, living with her boyfriend and that she had absconded from her home but was not deceased. They were then stumped once more.

There was another lead for the identification, a somewhat similar case that was linked up, this time from Northampton, Pennsylvania. Candace Clothier was found 13^th April, 1968 and had last been seen 9^th March, 1968 until her body was found. Two fishermen discovered the young lady decomposed and floating in the creek, she was found in a black cloth bag. Similarities in the case led to a question about them being linked, there is no more on her case, her case has been closed as it was felt that due to no leads and the chances of her murderer already being dead there was nothing more they could do.

‘Tent Girl’ was then a feature in American magazine, Master Detective, in the hopes that it might bring even more to the case and perhaps lead to her identification. She was eventually buried in an unmarked grave, No 90. She was buried in Georgetown Cemetery with a donated headstone and along with the police sketch of her, based on reconstructions from her body, there was also an inscription.

TENT GIRL

FOUND MAY 17 1968

ON U.S HIGHWAY 25,N.

DIED AB OUT APRIL 26 – MAY 3, 1968

AGE ABOUT 16-19 YEARS

HEIGHT 5 FEET 1 INCH

WEIGHT 110 TO 115LBS.

REDDISH BROWN HAIR

UNIDENTIFIED

She was identified in 1998, it was a result of the efforts of Todd Matthews. He was the son-in-law of Wilbur Riddle and having found out about the story he invested in a PC and got a website up and running. He had combed through lists of missing people online. He has since founded The Doe Network, an online database to identify missing people and unidentified descendants.

He got an e-mail from her sister, Rosemary Westbrook, about a young woman who had gone missing from nearby Lexington. It transpires that the family were told by her husband, George Earl Taylor, that she had run off with another man. It seems that this never rested well with Rosemary and she extended her contact to Todd Matthews, Matthews and the family were convinced enough that it led to the exhumation of her body and DNA testing. Cells from Rosemary’s teeth were compared to that of the unidentified woman and they matched up, she was finally identified. Her body was re-interred at the cemetery with her full headstone placed under the original. There is no mention of her marital name on the headstone.

The prime suspect in her murder is Barbara’s husband, George Earl Taylor, and he died of cancer in 1987. This is mentioned on Wikipedia but I have to admit I found no other source about this, given this I am not going to surmise he was involved, there is no evidence she ran away with another man but then again there is no evidence to say she did not.

What we do know is that she was finally identified and given a proper burial based on who she was, her sister was able to learn her fate and mourn properly and Todd Matthews has founded something wonderful to help as many as he can who might be sadly facing that sort of tragedy.

By Source, Fair use, Link

Jeruk Perut Cemetery

A cemetery in Jakarta, Indonesia is one of the better maintained in the Jakarta region. In the mid-2000’s it was extended and several squatters on the land were evicted. It is a heavily used cemetery and one of the few in Jarkata that could potentially extend in future. The cemetery is said to be haunted, including that of a child and a hairy ghoul. (Oh and also it has a Pokemon Go stop!)

The cemetery is most famous for the haunting of a decapitated pastor. A cemetery worker states after living and working in the area he says it is a hoax and two graveyard mowers echoed the sentiment but the story was used in 2006 in as film Hantu Jeruk Purut. It led to a burst in popularity for the story and the cemetery. Locally there are said to be people that go into the cemetery on a Friday night in odd numbers, according to what I could find this is because that’s the only condition under which the ghost will appear.

Legend has it that in 1986 a guard at the cemetery saw a headless pastor carrying his own head, and that he was followed by a black dog. The story is that he is looking for his grave which is said to be not in Jeruk Perut but in Tanah Kosir cemetery, another source on my looks said that he was looking for a Christian grave but actually he was in an area with only Muslim graves. I couldn’t locate the name of the priest or confirm any further details.

The film seems takes the notion that the Priest is looking for a grave in Jeruk Perut but the grave should be in Tanah Kosir Cemetery. An aspiring writer begins to look into it all only to find that the ghost starts to haunt her, fearing for her own life she passes her notes on to a fan and not long afterwards she is killed. I’ve not watched it nor have I typed up the plot, would you recommend it if you have seen it?

In reality other than the local legend there’s nothing more I could find on that regards. I did however find a new story that was really quite sad, a tomb guard at the cemetery, Mohammad Yusuf, appears to have hung himself in December 2015, the news article was translated from Beritahati.com and indicates that he had been suffering schizophrenia and was found hanging in the Frangipani trees there, he was found by local visitors and the most curious part of the translation was that he had no signs of injury other than the genitals, where sperm had been removed. I could find nothing more on his name or case, I could not find any reason for why that last comment seemed to have been included either.

I also found another interesting subject for this cemetery, and suspect not just this, but that regularly there have been fictitious graves found. An article in July 2016 discussed this matter, where a new wave of investigations had been made into it. There were, by that date, a registered 376 graves with no-one in them and no sign of anyone ever having tended them. The Jakarta governor had commented that they had been suspicious about this occurring but that people had remained silent, in 2015 Ahok (Governor) then ordered the Parks and Cemetery Agency to investigate.

By August 9^th, they had removed and demolished 277 of them, and it seems that one of the reasons they believe it is happening is that they are to give the impression of a very packed cemetery where they can then charge inflated prices. The fake graves have a name with no date, and often the name is written in some form of marker. Reserving a grave ahead of death is a crime due to the limited supply, yet it seems the there are cases (not just in this particular cemetery) of cemetery caretakers taking bribes to create fake graves. Where these cases are found they appear to be firing the heads of the cemeteries but no arrests seem to be listed.

So it seems there is actually, to me, a more interesting look at this cemetery ghost or not. I hope you enjoyed this article.

Dumas Beach

Dumas Beach, Gujurat in India is a popular tourist spot with black sand and wonderful sea views. Most tourists shop and visit unaware that the locals say it is one of the most haunted beaches in India.

The Hindu belief is that the soul is normally in two states the first being the waiting for rebirth (reincarnation) and the second is when the soul reaches Nirvana. There is one exception to these two which is when someone has a horrible or sudden death.

Dumas Beech’s ghostly story may well stem from the fact it is a cremation ground. Cremations are to allow the soul to leave its earthly trapping. Many of the dead could be counted as tormented souls and locals state they often hear noises or whispers when they walk along the beach.

They say that dogs they walk try to stop them going to certain spots and perhaps they are sensing those spirits and try to stop their human companions coming into contact with them or feeling distress. There are also stories that tourists who have walked down the black sand at night have disappeared and not been found.

But is any of it true? LINK

By Marwada – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18324767