Ghost Tours Kansas released its 2009 list of the top five most haunted places in Kansas on March 28.

Lawrence didn’t make the list, but Beth Cooper, co-owner of Ghost Tours Kansas, said that didn’t mean the city wasn’t haunted. Cooper said the list only included places that Ghost Tours Kansas paranormal investigators, who haven’t made it to Lawrence yet, determined were haunted.

“At this point, it is hard to get into some of these locations,” Cooper said. “The Eldridge Hotel is not going to shut down just so we can do an investigation.”

Cooper said Lawrence was home to places that were definitely haunted, locations where many people believe paranormal activity occurs.

Students who have lived in, explored and investigated these places said they knew what she was talking about.

Stull Cemetery

Stull Cemetery, where the devil is said to return twice a year, is located about 15 miles from Lawrence. The cemetery was named Haunted America Tours 2009 second most haunted cemetery in America.

Cooper said the Stull myth began in 1974 after University Daily Kansan reporters wrote a story claiming the cemetery was “haunted by diabolical, supernatural happenings.”

After hearing about the stair case that never ends and the satanic rituals performed at the burnt down church, Gena Pollack, Tulsa, Okla., freshman, decided she had to go to Stull.

Pollack and four of her friends turned off their car lights so they wouldn’t get caught and drove in through the open cemetery gates, which are usually closed she said.

One of her friends got out of the car to go to the bathroom. After he was gone for five minutes, Pollack said, they began to worry. But then he came back.

That was the closest they got to a paranormal experience.

“We were just testing the theory, but nothing creepy happened,” Pollack said. “I would say it was disappointing.”

Cooper said a paranormal investigator visited the cemetary and found kids “dropping acid,” but no ghosts. Cooper said the cemetery, considered to be one of the seven gateways to hell, was not haunted.

The Eldridge

Joe Hermens, former KU student, stayed in room 506 in the Eldridge Hotel his sophomore year with three of his friends. The fifth floor is said to be the most haunted floor in the Eldridge, and Cooper said people from across the country traveled to Lawrence just to stay in room 506, where the most paranormal activity occurs.

While he waited for his friends to show up, Hermens noticed an empty chair across from him tilting back and forth as if someone were leaning backwards on it. Hermens said that the rocking went on for about a minute and that he was able to take pictures of it on his camera phone. Just to make sure an employee didn’t attach strings to the chair, he said, he waved his hands around it before hastily walking out of the room.

He said he wasn’t sure whether he had an actual encounter with a ghost, but the rest of the night he and his friends avoided the area.

“It was pretty obvious the chair was tilting in a way that it should not have without some external force,” Hermens said. “I am willing to admit that there are not a lot of explanations that account for what happened.”

Cooper said she was certain the Eldridge was haunted.

The Sigma Nu

Fraternity House

The plaque above the Sigma Nu house fireplace reads “World of strife shut out. World of love shut in.”

Behind the plaque, the ashes of Virginia, the mistress and adopted daughter of governor Roscoe Stubbs are said to rest. Cooper said Stubbs, who built the home in the early-1900s, sent his wife away after finding Virginia hanging in a closet in the house.

John Leroy, Leawood senior, has lived in the house for two years. He said he has heard Virginia’s footsteps in the hall when no one was around. The door of the closet Virginia was supposedly killed in, Leroy said, often locks on its own.

“At recruitment they told the story about how the ghost Virginia lived there, then some of the older guys would share stories,” Leroy said. “I think a lot of guys believe in it. It’s probably better to err on the side caution.”

Cooper said she and members of the fraternity had discussed investigating the house to determine whether it’s actually haunted, but nothing definite has been scheduled.

To this day though, Cooper said, Virginia could still very well be shut in.

“Stubbs adopted a young girl, fell in love with her, but his wife didn’t appreciate it and hung the girl in a closet,” Cooper said. “Now, every generation of young people who have resided in the house all have stories.”

— — Edited by Chris Horn