A haunting in downtown Rome

Editor’s note: This is a continuation of Severo Avila’s ghost-hunting adventure, which he began recounting in last Tuesday’s Rome News-Tribune.

After my session in the courtroom and a brief break in the command room, I was sent with another team to a different part of the building. This time my team members were Pam, Jackie and a newbie to the SPIs, Chris. At first I was a little concerned because I didn’t want to go down into the creepy basement with some newbie. I needed seasoned veterans around me. If we encountered a ghost I wanted everyone to know exactly what to do — namely, to sacrifice themselves so that I could get away and tell others of their courage and bravery.

But all three investigators were very professional and I felt completely safe and comfortable with them.

We descended into the dark basement of the courthouse. There’s a boiler down there so it was very warm. The only things down there now are old files and furniture and cobwebs but at one time there was apparently a tiny holding cell where prisoners were kept before being brought up to trial in the courtroom.

The rumor is that a very big man was once a bailiff or guard at the courthouse, and he used to guard the prisoners and escort them to trial from the holding cell. It’s said that his spirit still patrols these dark rooms.

We first went into the little holding cell with its heavy iron door. We sat there in the dark with only a recording device. Y’all, let me just say that while I wasn’t afraid to be in that room since three other people were with me, it was definitely a very heavy, eerie experience. I guess I thought about the people who had been locked in there. I thought about all the emotions those walls had seen, the secret confessions only the bricks had heard, the many tears that must have been shed there. And all that added up to me feeling a little uncomfortable.

But though the team tried to communicate with whatever spirit may have been down there, we only got silence.

We left that room and went into another part of the basement, sitting in the pitch black and speaking to the darkness but, again, nothing.

Finally, when our time had ended we went back up to the control room.

At this point, my old friend Randy Davis said he had to go home. At his age he needs to be in bed early enough to watch Judge Judy or Wheel of Fortune or whatever it is he watches. He was already out way past his bedtime.

But I stayed and went on one final session out into the main lobby of the building where Nellie had shot Eurcell many years ago.

This time, as soon as we sat down and began attempting communication, we all distinctly heard a door open and footsteps walk away from us. It was so loud and clear that we all just assumed an investigator had somehow walked near us.

Barry radioed to the control room only to be told that no one was in any of the hallways. A team was up in the courtroom and another was in the control room. But no one had been anywhere near us when we distinctly heard a door open and footsteps squeaking on the waxed floors. We tried to explain it but couldn’t. We checked all the doors nearby and all the rooms. We even checked the disheveled office of Kevin Payne. But still nothing.

I left the courthouse shortly after that, and the team (including Kevin) stayed behind to do more investigating and no doubt compile all their findings.

Here are my observations from Saturday night.

I do believe that I heard a woman’s voice in the courtroom with us when there was no reason for a woman’s voice to be there. I did get a very heavy, eerie feeling while sitting in the darkness of the holding cell, though that may have been purely psychological. And I absolutely heard someone open or close a door and walk near us when there was no one in the vicinity.

I don’t know if the courthouse is haunted or not, but there is most certainly a very rich history there. Like many old buildings it has its stories to tell and its secrets to keep.

Readers can go there today and see the marks on the wall from Nellie’s bullets. And they can see the hole in the entrance to the bathroom where one of those bullets lodged itself that day.

Do I think that in the deepest, darkest part of the night, that the restless spirits of Nellie Boswell and Eurcell Haney still go through the motions of that fateful day so many years ago? Perhaps they do.

Do I think that somewhere down in the basement, a long dead bailiff still keeps his watch, compelled to fulfill his duties? It would be intriguing to think so.

Here’s what I know for sure. There are many, many things we do not understand. And if tales of ghosts and restless spirits can draw people’s interest in Rome’s historic places, then I’m happy to keep an open mind about them.

And I’m happy to go on another local investigation with the SPI ... as long as Kevin Payne admits he’s a full-fledged ghost hunter.