Location: Crescent View Cemetery is just off Highway 220 at 3901 Crescent View Drive in the Crescent View section of Greensboro, North Carolina, across the street from Crescent View Episcopal Church. The area is bordered by Highway 220 to the west and Bancroft Road to the east. Like any cemetery, it is open to the public during daylight hours only.

"The story of Catherine Crescent is one of the most carefully researched versions of the ghostly hitchhiker known in paranormal research." Parapsychologist Vincent Cochet explains. "She might not be as old or as famous as Resurrection Mary or as romantic as the story of Lavender near New York City, but she is definitely the most detailed." Dr. Cochet is a resident psychology teacher at Madison College and a very respected parapsychologist in his field. While some of his methods border on the extreme and almost unprofessional, he has longed over 1200 hours in paranormal investigations.

"Catherine Crescent is actually the name of the ghost of Catherine Marie Witherspoon, an eighteen-year-old college student from Raleigh, North Carolina. In 1957, she was attending Madison College, but on January 13 of that year, she got in a fight with Ronald Phelps, her boyfriend, and demanded to be let out of the car here near the gates of Crescent View Cemetery. It was a cold, wintry night, and she here in the middle of no where. Now don't forget, this was the Fifties; no one owned a cell phone, and she had no way of calling anyone for a ride. Curled up against the gates, she waited for Ronald to come back and get her, but he never did. Three days later after Cathy was reported missing by her friends, a police cruiser found her frozen in position against the gates.

"The selfish act shocked many people in town, and Cathy's family started a lawsuit against the Phelps who countered with a harassment suit." Cochet continues. "A judge tossed both cases out of court, but five months later, Ronald woke one night screaming his head off. He claimed Cathy's ghost was in his room and trying to climb into bed with him. This happened over three nights until July 22, 1957 when his parents found him in bed dead of heart attack, and at the time, they said he body as well as his room was extremely cold. Practically frozen they described it."

Cathy's ghost never appeared in the Phelps House after that, but in November of that year, several motorists have seen Cathy huddled against the gates of the cemetery in a thin white dress. All the descriptions of her are remarkably similar: a pale blonde girl with white skin and extremely blue eyes. She wanders the road back and forth and rests to sit in the same space where her body was found. Recent versions of local lore claim she once lured someone into the cemetery to try to kill him or a woman who thought Cathy hopped into her body as she was visiting the cemetery, but such extraordinary claims are usually taken with a grain of salt. For over fifty years, people have claimed to see Catherine Crescent roaming the grounds while others have taken spirit pictures and recorded orbs. However, not everyone believes that she is the only resident in the cemetery.

"I visited Crescent View Cemetery back at dusk of a summer night back in 2000 with a good friend, bringing a camera with us." College student Eli Dunst mentions. "We took a number of photos in various parts of the cemetery, but upon development, found nothing unusual. The entire cemetery seemed like a very peaceful place, but we did have an unusual encounter of sorts. When we first arrived, it was just after sundown, and we were wandering around the graves and jokingly trying to freak each other out with ghost stories. Suddenly, a very loud inhuman noise came from behind a nearby grave marker, and we all froze in place where we were trying to figure out what it was."

Over the years, multiple witnesses have described and witnesses several things. Every time someone is buried here, a figure in dark has been observed wandering between the tombstones as if he's checking out the internment. He's been seen standing and leaning against trees and the distant tree line observing, but he's never seen walking away when anyone tries to get another look. He's not frightening or imposing; he just looks as if he's watching and observing.

"At least three times since 1976," Cochet adds. "Several people have reported seeing spectral grave diggers digging in the area. The first report comes from August 23, 1976 when Arthur Burnstheim was being laid to rest. The cemetery is almost flat, and has several trees on it. During his funeral, several members of his family and friends reported that the funeral that they were bothered by the loud voices and arguing of three men up on the mount known as the Overview section being boisterous. They heard their laughing, loud voices and scuffling noises as they dug into the soft dirt. One of the young men walked over so far and asked them to be quiet, but the men continued unabated. That afternoon, the pastor leading the service and three of the bereaved appeared at the church to complain about the insensitivity of the employees. The only problem was there was no grave being dug that day in that area much less anywhere else in the cemetery. Words were exchanged, arguments incited over the veracity of the claims and everyone went up into the Overview section to point out the open grave in the area, but there were no signs of digging up there. The grounds were intact and the grass unbroken.

"This same thing happened two more times." Dr. Cochet adds. "In 1982 and recently again in March of 1990. On that date, one of the pall bearers again confronted the men over the noise and was stunned to see them fading away into nothing. Rumors are these are the ghosts of three grave robbers who were discovered by the police and shot and killed in the area. It's claimed their bodies were buried dumped together in a pauper's grave and that they return for every new interment in the cemetery."

Although the cemetery is beautiful and pastoral during the day, at night, when the night time colors of blue and shadowy violet take over, the area takes on a spooky and eerie atmosphere of its own. Mist sometimes appears when the moisture catches in the cold air, and people claim to have seen dark shadows bobbing between the grave markers. They move between the tombstones and hide behind the trees, poking their heads out at the police patrols. In 1991, a police patrol caught a little girl in a light blue dress running over the lane and disappearing near a mausoleum. They searched and called out for her, but they never caught her.

Others have heard their names called, even during the day. Random individuals have felt touched. Salvatore Domenecki, the caretaker who oversees the care of the grounds, says he's felt followed several times on the grounds. The caretaker's hut on the grounds has had poltergeist activity. Desk drawers are found open that were closed, a coffee pot goes on by itself and something tries to start the grounds keeping equipment.

"I don't know if I believe in ghosts." He mentions. "Strange things happen, but I'm not always going to blame it on ghosts. When I trod the grounds, I'm not going looking for evidence of the supernatural, but when I cover the area, I've found broken glass, whiskey and gin bottles and other evidence of trespassing ghost hunters and thrill seekers. Some of the tombstones too, they have not simply been worn down by the elements but have been clearly damaged by these vandals. You see, when people like Dr. Cochet or Ed and Lorraine Warren spout their stories about the cemetery, it attracts the uninformed and illiterate for miles.

"There was recently five thousand dollars in repairs necessary to rectify damage to the grounds caused by such people, and this had to be paid for by the Crescent View Cemetery Association. These uneducated people think because a cemetery is not surrounded by four walls and a roof that they come loiter around, do their damage and then wander away again. Now, I don't mind a good ghost story, but there is a danger from such wild tales as spun by these prevaricators. They put forth a claim that besmirches a fine old place, such as the cemetery, and then ignore the consequences of such irresponsible commentary. The sad part is that the cemetery is still in active use. All of the plots are sold, and people are still being buried there. Friends and family still visit the site to pay their respects to the dead, and they are forced to wade through the refuse and destruction caused by the aforementioned high school dropouts. When Reverend Cletus Abernathy, our benefactor, was recently placing flags upon the graves of some of the veterans, he had to pick up used and spilled alcohol bottles. We have to remind the local newspaper every year not to publish any of the local ghost stories because we don't want to have to clean up the mess or pay for damages we didn't need to happen.

"The cemetery is closed from dusk to dawn, and is clearly posted thus. However, carloads of the illiterate still invade the grounds at night, irrationally seeking the ghosts they believe walk these grounds then becoming as violent as terrorists when nothing happens. Would it be improper to send the bill for the vandalism to these tellers of tales making them come here?"

History: Established in 1927, Crescent View Cemetery was posted as a cemetery as early as 1845 as a pauper's grave yard with a section for the wealthy up on Overview Hill. The rest of the area was the grounds for the old Stepney Schoolhouse which closed down in 1945 and demolished to become part of the cemetery. Over the years, an effort was made to separate the wealthy and the destitute halves of the cemetery, but now, lots are sold as they are made available.

On December 11, 2008, three teenagers caught in the cemetery after dark were fined $2500 and fifty days of community service for breaking into the mausoleum and trying to open a crypt to "wake the ghosts into doing something." Two months later, five out of twelve young adults were also caught and fined identical punishments for knocking over tombstones and urinating on the Veterans Monument. A few weeks later, police distracted by ghost researchers from Baltimore failed to apprehend five young men who stole the marker of Johnathan Michael "Punisher" Rucker, a reputed 1930s mobster. Although the tombstone was recovered from a Las Vegas pawn shop, the thieves have yet to be arrested.

Identity of Ghosts: Of all the stories here, one of the most memorable tales involves an evil spirit called "Red Hook," a demonic spirit that reportedly attacked and scratched twenty-two people here at the turn of the century. People passing through the woods here between 1897 and 1908 said they were attacked by this evil entity and barely escaped with their lives. On September 11, 1908, an adventurer and surveyor named Harper Lee Newell was riding through the area on his horse when Red Hook attacked him and his mount. In the scuffle, he slashed at it with the dagger off his rifle and killed it. Red Hook turned out to be a large aggressive red hawk with a wingspan of almost twelve feet and talons as large as human hands. After that, the attacks stopped. The body was reportedly stuffed and displayed at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh for thirty years until she started falling apart.

Source/Comments: Gravedancers (2006) - Loosely based on Resurrection Cemetery in Justice, Illinois; Gilroy Cemetery in Nashua, Illinois; Oak Hill Cemetery in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Union Cemetery in Easton, Connecticut; Stepney Cemetery in Monroe, Connecticut and Holy Sepulchre Catholic Cemetery in Chicago, Illinois