Blood Cemetery
My name is Drew, and in late August in 1966,
two friends of mine, Dan and Tom, asked me to go with them to a party on the
beach at Lake Michigan. I was about 15 years old at that time. Ghost stories
were being told around the campfire by almost everyone their, most of which I
had already heard.
As
the night went on, a young girl about 17 years old started telling a story
about a family of Doctor's with the last name of Blood. It was out on Round
Lake Road near Dewitt, MI, about 100 miles from the beach party, but only 20
miles from my home in Lansing. The Bloods had a lot of land where the whole
family lived. The most interesting part was that they had a private graveyard
on the property and that the whole area was haunted. She said that she
saw gravestones that dated back to1800.
On their prom night, she and some of her friends decided to go out to the Cemetery. They looked around at the headstones for a while. As it started to get dark the fog hung thick, and a full moon was rising so they started trying to scare each other. Then the young girls' prom date decided to go into Dr. Blood's house because he thought no one lived there any longer. They waited about an hour or so, and when he didn't return, they got scared and headed for the Dewitt police department. When they went in to tell the police, the officer on duty said "don't you kids know any better, old Dr. Blood lives out there and he doesn't like anyone trespassing on his property". He also went onto say that he thought, "Dr. Blood was harmless and he's in his 80's" so, he didn't think there would be any problem. They all returned to the property, but to everyone's shock when they got back, the whole house were ablaze. The fire department was called, but in vane, because the house burnt to the ground. The next day there was a search party, but the only thing that was found in the rubble were the remains of the young man that had gone into the house the night before. The paper reported that his hands and feet had been bound. Dr. Blood's remains were never found.
One
of the searchers that afternoon found a freshly dug grave, when they unearthed
it, a pine coffin was found. Upon opening it, they found the body of Mrs.
Blood. She was dressed in a red gown, with her arms; legs and head cut off.
There had been no coroner's report of a body being buried there, or any police
report of any murder.
The
girl at the campfire that night said that the ghost of Dr Blood; to this day
roams the cemetery at night, with a shotgun in one hand, and an ax in the
other.
That night was the last time I ever heard or
saw the young girl who first told me about Blood Cemetery, but it wouldn't be
my last experience with the Blood family.
My Story After I returned from Lake Michigan, I told some of my friends the story I had heard, some told me there own stories, about how they had been scared out at the cemetery. Mark said he had seen a ghost of an old man wandering the graveyard as if he was lost. Another friend said that he saw an apparition of an elderly man carrying a body and it appeared to be headless and armless.
Another 2 years would go by, before I got the nerve to
visit this so-called haunted Cemetery. You see I never quite believed these
"ghost stories", until I saw the most BLOOD CHILLING things myself.
The first time I went there was with Dan and JC, it was a steamy hot July night. The moon was big and full and it lit up the
night sky as if it were daylight, the fog was drifting over the Cemetery as it
rolled in from the lake. The feeling in the air was electrifying.
At the entrance to the Cemetery were two old rusted iron
gates, and hanging above was a sign saying Blood Cemetery. By the light of the
moon you could see the old grave stones. Some had been toppled over, and some
were broken. The weeds were about knee high. There was a smell of
jasmine in the air.
After looking around for a few minutes, I decided to
scare the two of them. I had taken one of my mother's old white nightgowns and
I hung it from a fence post when I was sure they weren't looking. There was a
slight breeze in the air that night and I thought it would look like it was
floating in the breeze. Just as I was about to put my plan into action, I
heard JC scream. Dan and I went running over, he told us that he had seen a
woman's figure in a long red gown. He said that she appeared to be headless
and armless, and was coming right toward him, when she disappeared into thin
air. I thought that he had seen the gown I had hung on the post. I took
Dan and JC over to see where I had hung the old nightgown, and surely what JC
had saw was my little joke, but when we got there the gown was gone.
Feeling a little spooked from what JC had thought he'd
seen, we started our way out of the Cemetery to leave. On our way out I said to
Dan, who was quit a bit taller that me, pull the sign down, and we'll take it
home with us.
Our night at Blood Cemetery was pretty uneventful,
except for the woman in the red gown. We went back to Dan's farmhouse, where
he lived with his Mom, Dad, 2 brothers, and 3 sisters. It was late when
we got there, so the 3 of us went to bed, after putting the sign on top of
Dan's dresser. The next morning when we got up we had breakfast and got
cleaned up, Dan told his father about the sign we took the night before. With
instant anger, his father demanded to see the sign. But this task proved not
to be so easy, because when we went to the bedroom to get it, IT WAS GONE. Dan
questioned his brothers and sisters, and they all swore they hadn't seen it,
let alone take it.
After a couple of day's, of looking we were sure that
Dan's brothers and sister's had nothing to do with the missing sign. We drove
back out to Round Lake. When we got to the Cemetery, there it was hanging
above the old rusty gates was the sign we had taken two nights before, looking
like it had never been disturbed.
Several more years had gone by, when I ran into some
friends at a restaurant, on Halloween night. They talked me into going out
there again. (After all it was HALLOWEEN) When we got there the weeds were
about chest high and the fences were falling down. One of the guys in the
group called us over; he was shining his flashlight on a headstone. We
couldn't believe what we were seeing. There lying over the grave was a large
piece of glass about 6 feet long, and about 2 feet deep, incased in it were a
dozen long stem roses imbedded in the center.
Just about that time we heard a shotgun blast. We ran
back to our vehicles, and the right side of Dan's car had been shot, and the
windows had been shattered. Needless to say we got the hell out of there. With
people seeing ghosts, hearing things, and the car being shot up. I swore I
would NEVER go back out there again. But I've learned you should (NEVER SAY,
NEVER).
When I was about 26 or 27 years old, I was riding with
some motorcycle enthusiasts. It was a beautiful June day; the skies were blue
and clear. It was hot, but who cares when you're on your bike. My girlfriend,
Chris, rode with me on the back of my bike. She had heard so many stories about
the Blood family, she decided to bring a camera with her. We looked around at
the rundown graveyard, and Chris was taking pictures, after a few hours we
decided to leave, and all of us started down Round Lake Rd. We were about 150
yards from the Cemetery and Chris and I hit a snapping turtle. The bike went
out of control and we crashed into a tree. I suffered only minor injuries, but
Chris had broken her back, and was paralyzed from the waist down. She was able
to walk again after a couple of years, with the aid of crutches. (The curse of
Blood Cemetery had struck again)
I've since heard lots of stories since our terrible
accident.
In 1989, two high school girls were out to have some fun on Halloween night. The news reported that their car went out of control about a 1/4 of a mile from the Cemetery. Their car plunged into Round Lake and they both drowned.
The County has now put up hurricane fence around the
Cemetery, with razor wire strung along the top.
And I've learned that at least 4 or 5 Blood son's from each generation have become Doctor's for the last 150 years.
And a couple of years ago, Lansing named one of their
Halloween haunted house's after Blood Cemetery.
If you're ever out on Round Lake Rd, and you see a full
moon rising, DON'T visit Blood Cemetery.
Drew K.
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