Today’s haunted tale comes from a cemetery near my hometown of Crown Point, Indiana. Around the area this cemetery is a local legend. It is a small cemetery dating back to the mid 1800’s. Its real name is actually Southeast Grove Cemetery, but everyone knows it as Gypsy’s (or Gypsies depending on who’s writing) Graveyard. The legend goes that a band of gypsies came through Crown Point in the 1840’s and decided to camp for a couple of weeks. Well, the locals did not like that and insisted that they leave blaming them of anything from stealing livestock to just being a nuisance. The people there demanded they leave after only a few days. So, they did. The only reason that they had stopped to begin with was because they had a sickness spreading throughout camp and some of the gypsies were gravely ill. On their way out of town, they buried those that had passed away in what is now Southeast Grove Cemetery, or Gypsy’s. Legend says that as they were leaving, they also put a spell on the cemetery to curse whoever disturbed the dead. Supposedly blood has been found on the legs of visitor’s pants, shadows, orbs, and eerie feelings have also been reported. The legend is interesting, no doubt, but I am not sure if it is real or just legend.
My experiences at Gypsy’s have ranged from nothing, to orbs, to downright terrifying. After becoming a fan of ghost hunting, my two best friends and I decided to hit all of the local “hot spots” and of course Gypsy’s was at the top of that list. The first time there, we had some orbs in the photos but nothing else. The next time we went, nothing, but yet we still went back time and again. The last time that I ever went there was 14 years ago. There is exactly one parking spot on the opposite side of the road, so my friend parked her car in that spot around 10 PM that night. As we were preparing to cross the street, headlights shown down the road coming our way. Of course, we panicked as the car came closer and we saw it was a police officer. He stopped rolled down his window and asked us where we were going. He said, “I’m going to let you go in there, but there better not be any damage, or I will know who to blame.” We were not destructive and were always respectful of the dead so we knew we would not be a problem, but what if someone else showed up? Apparently, we did not care, we wanted to go in. Right before he rolled up his window to drive away he said, “Be careful, this place is strange. We get calls all the time. There’s really something wrong with this place.” We thanked him and he left. We weren’t really scared by his warnings because we had been there many times, and nothing had happened.
As we walked through the old creaky gate, I kid you not, there was this strange fog that started to grow thick. It was really weird. In the center of the graveyard there is an angel statue, as we got close to her, all three of us froze. I can’t tell you why, we just stopped. I started to get this awful feeling and couldn’t get out of there fast enough. We turned as some sort of unit and practically ran out of there. Mind you, we hadn’t seen anything, only had a weird feeling. Right as we got out of the gate, I turned around and froze. My friends did the same. There appeared to be a weird shape GLIDING through the cemetery about twenty feet away. At one point its head snapped in our direction and then turned forward again to continue its glide. That was enough for me and I practically dove into the backseat of my friends car as she and our other friend hopped in. She floored it out of the area and a few minutes later we arrived at a restaurant and slid into the closest booth. We still had not said a word to one another and honestly I’m not sure how long it was before we actually spoke. All three of us were pale and clearly terrified. Finally, one of my friends broke the silence by telling each of us to whisper to him what we saw. I whispered first and then my other friend. He then confirmed that we each saw the exact same thing. Eventually we left the restaurant to head home for the night, still basically silent.
The next morning I drove back to my friend’s house, the one who drove the night before, because we were heading out to do who knows what. As we got into her car, the doors locked and the radio started turning on and off. She hadn’t even put the keys in the ignition yet. It did this for maybe twenty seconds, then stopped. We got out and I went home. I haven’t been back to Gypsy’s since that day, I’m not sure I am ever going to go back.
Disclaimer: If you want to visit this place, make sure you have prior permission. It is private property.
