ST JOHNS, KAPUNDA INVESTIGATION – 09.02.08

A quick history for those people out there who are unfamiliar with St Johns cemetery and reformatory here in South Australia. This area was actually known as Johnstown back in the 1850s and was an Irish farming community. A church was built up there with a house and Father Fallon moved in. He died there at the age of 40, as did the Father Ryan who followed him. Father Ryan died there at the very young age of 24. They were buried up at the church but later the bodies were relocated further down in the newer built cemetery.

In 1897 it was decided to convert the church and house into a reformatory for wayward girls and the Sisters of Joseph were asked to operate it. Problems were encountered from the very beginning, mainly due to the isolation of the reformatory and the fact that the girls were determined to escape at every opportunity.

There was also an insinuation that the girls were being improperly treated by the resident chaplain, Fr Martin. He was reported to be in poor health and at the time had a questionable state of mind. Finally in 1909 an 18 year old girl, Ruby Bland, died in hospital. The death certificate states that she died from complications from a gallstone operation, but rumours were rife that she had been pregnant and died in childbirth. Interestingly shortly after Ruby died, the reformatory was closed down. Rather then have any scandal, it was decided by Archbishop O'Reily to close the reformatory once and for all and the girls were moved out. It was finally demolished in 2002 with the excuse that because of vandalism, drug use and 'witchcraft' the ruins were deemed unsafe. Speculation arose that due to the airing of the documentary 'Kapunda – Most Haunted Town in Australia' it caused unwanted attention to the reformatory's chequered past, and so the church demolished it swiftly causing yet another historic site to be lost.

But what of the hauntings? Was there any truth to this documentary? Was the cemetery and reformatory site REALLY haunted? The reports we had were mainly centred around Ruby Bland. It was said that she still walked the cemetery and reformatory looking for her baby. Rumours were rife also of an angry Father Martin, who would patrol the reformatory and even push unsuspecting people around. And what of Sister Mary Mackillops letter that mentions that she had seen none of the ghosts yet. Was this to mean that rumours of haunting were happening long before St Johns became a reformatory?

We started investigating this area many years ago, and is probably one of our most active sites, next to the Old Adelaide Gaol. We have had our investigators witness fully formed enitites, orbs over headstones (with the naked eye), heard church bells, people walking on the gravel paths, and the list goes one.

For those that are interested, a more comprehensive overview of the history of our investigations will be found at our new website, which will be released soon. But for now we will just concentrate on last nights happenings.

We got to St John's before the sun went down, as two of our newer members had never seen this site. St John's is out in the middle of nowhere…literally. As the old Alien movie says, 'Out there, there's nobody to hear you scream!' There isn't a property for miles and it is down dirt tracks. So we just wanted to familiarise the new members before we lost the light. It was a new moon that night and it rapidly followed the sun down over the horizon, leaving us in total darkness….. just the way we like it lol.

We broke into 3 teams of 2 for the first shift. But this was very quiet with nothing unusual happening. There were some noises, but we tracked these down to a natural source. Brett's phone, which was fairly new, did suddenly display the numbers and time back to front when he first entered the cemetery, which was odd and something to keep his eye on in the future to see if it is a fault with the phone. It should be noted that it had not had a problem previously and has not been a problem since.

If anybody else knows of a known fault with these phones then please let us know.

We also had our TriField Meter sitting on one of the headstones. At one point in the night it started to activate and give off abnormal readings.

The second shift, left 2 teams down in the cemetery whilst Amy and myself drove up the hill to where the reformatory had once stood. And that is when the pace picked up!!

No sooner had we driven around the corner, Megan contacted us on the two-way to ask if we had shouted. 'Erm we are driving… and the windows are shut, so no not us' I replied. From the corner of the cemetery where we had driven, Megan described hearing loud female voices. It continued with them hearing childrens voices on and off after that. Meanwhile we pulled up at our spot and suddenly froze. I have spent many years investigating, and am used to wandering in the dark or sitting on my own in places, and it doesn't really faze me. However, for some reason, this spot was different. My heart was suddenly racing and I could hardly breathe. I am not gifted with clairvoyance, and I like to keep things on a more technical level, but this time, all I can say is it felt like I had somebody standing close to my window, and he wasn't happy. It was so strong, that I felt that I didn't want to turn and look at that window, or over my shoulder. I turned to Amy only to find that she looked uncomfortable too. Upon enquiring what was wrong, she confirmed that she was feeling exactly the same and couldn't look behind her. As we were discussing this, I watched what looked like a shadow of a man cross through the beam of my headlights, in front of the car. After taking a deep breath we both got out of the car and walked to the gate after all that is what we were there for. It was then we heard footsteps of something large coming towards us through the undergrowth. 'It's just the wind', I told myself, and repeated this several times in my head whilst at the same time noting how there wasn't any movement in the trees. The footsteps got so close we almost expected to see a man walk out of the trees towards us. The feeling that accompanied it was very uncomfortable. We decided to call in the rest of the team and concentrate our efforts up there. But by the time they arrived, the atomosphere had gone back to being fairly pleasant. We spent another 20 minutes there, and decided to call it a night.

Why were Amy and myself affected up there, when the first team Megan and Brett had felt comfortable earlier. Was it because we had no male team member with us? If Father Martin exists could he have been attracted to the car because we were females? Or was it all just our active imaginations. Sadly, I wasn't filming when the shadow crossed in front of the car, however, we had audio running all night, so hopefully it may have picked up the footsteps. Now comes the hard part of an investigation… the hours and hours of going through audio and video. We will post if we find anything further.

UPDATE:

After going through the audio tapes that were present in the car that night, we came across an evp that seems to be saying Sinners. It is a male voice and there was only Amy and myself in the car at the time. The voice can be heard in the introduction to PFI blog as the video there contains this recording.

THE OLD ADELAIDE GAOL - IS IT REALLY HAUNTED?

SIX YEARS OF OFFICIAL INVESTIGATION AT THE OLD ADELAIDE GAOL - THE HISTORY

PART 1

A BRIEF HISTORY

Adelaide gaol started its life in 1841 and continued in service until it was finally closed in 1988. The Gaol was built in stages with additions being built onto it until 1847. It was questioned at the time as to why such an expensive gaol was needed, especially in a State that was a free colony not a penal. In fact the building of the gaol nearly bankrupted South Australia at the time, and questions were asked. However it soon proved its worth, and started to fill up fairly rapidly.

An old aerial view of the gaol

Over it's 147 years of service, an estimated 300,000 men and women have passed through its doors and 45 prisoners were executed on the premises, where they remain to this day. One of the more famous being Elizabeth Woolcock, hung in 1873 and the only woman to have been hung in South Australia. She was found guilty of poisoning her husband with arsenic. However, he was already a sick man and was being treated by several different doctors all of whom would have had small traces of arsenic in their medication. A retrial was held recently and the same evidence was presented, at which poor Elizabeth was found not guilty. Ironically she had tried to commit suicide a year earlier by hanging herself, but the attempt failed. Some people feel she should not be there now, and still leave flowers on her grave.

Between 1840 and 1964 one woman and 44 men were hanged at Adelaide Gaol in 4 separate areas. Portable gallows were used for 20 of these people; a further 21 were hung in the New Building and four in the hanging tower. All of these people are still buried at the gaol and their graves can still be visited along the walkways.

Graves at the Adelaide Gaol. The prisoners were only given initials, prisoner number and date of hanging which, were painted onto the wall, to be remembered by. They were not put in sanctified ground as it was seen as punishment for eternity.

BUT WHAT OF THE HAUNTINGS?

Stories have been coming out of the gaol for many years now. We had reports of staff working in the office on their own, who would hear footsteps crossing the upper floor when nobody was there and sounds of furniture moving around. Of another volunteer, who upon leaving the office to deal with the public in the shop, would return to find her paperwork strewn across the floor, even after she started placing mugs of coffee on them. At one point she told it to stop as it was scaring her, and it didn't happen again. This behaviour was maybe in keeping with the first Governor Ashton, who was known to have a sense of humour. He used to live upstairs and eventually died up there due to weight complications as he was a very large man. In fact he was so large that when they found him, rigamortous had set in,and they had to lower him out of a window with ropes as they couldn't fit him through the doors. Not a very dignified ending.

Then there were stories of a lady dressed in white. In fact one school group, after a sleepover, approached staff the next day and asked where the mannequin had gone from one of the yards as it had been there the night before. They were informed there had been no mannequin in that yard, but they insisted they had seen a lady dressed in white just standing there. The only lady on record that ever wore a white dress in the Gaol, had been Elizabeth Woolcock at her execution. Was she still haunting the place?

'A' Wing

But the stories that interested us the most were the ones that were coming out of 'A' Wing where 21 of the hangings had taken place. It was regularly reported that a guard would be seen at the top of the old metal staircase. In fact records show that even when the gaol was working, prisoners and guards alike often found it uncomfortable in that block made requests to be moved. I interviewed a guard who used to work there and he informed me that a couple of the guards refused to do night duty in that block as they could hear somebody patrolling the gantreys, when they were sitting in their office. Finally the Gaol was closed and the Adelaide Council were called in to clear it out. We tracked down a couple of the workers and found that after a few days they refused to go back into to the Gaol, 'A' Wing in particular. They were hearing footsteps, doors slamming and they were getting increasingly more uncomfortable. Eventually they had to bring contractors in to complete the clean up. And what about the electrician who was up a step ladder adding some party lights ready for people who had hired the block for an upcoming celebration. If you can imagine yourself at the top of the stepladder and you glance up through the bars to the second floor, only to find a face smiling back at you through those bars. The problem was … it WAS only a face, there was no body. He ended up back at the office and told them that if they want lights… they can **@&(@ do it themselves!! He was determined he wasn't going back in there again. There was also the work experience student whose first job was to go into 'A' Wing and put up the new government No Smoking signs. It wasn't long before he too, ended up back at the office shaking. He said he had seen a guard come out of the top offices and run down one of the gantries and into a cell before disappearing. He was told that if he wanted to work there, he had to get used to the guard as he was part of the Gaol.

Top of staircase where old Office is and where the Guard is witnessed.

And the list of stories went on. So 6 years ago we were invited to come in and officially start investigating the Old Adelaide Gaol. We thank management for this and for the trust they gave us right from the start. Eventually we went on to become volunteers at the gaol ended up taking some of the Ghost Tours for them.

Over the 6 years we were investigating, our ghost tours went from 1 hr and expanded gradually into over 2-3 hrs. This is because we accumulated so much new material the more we investigated. There is probably too much to put here, but when we release the website we will have expanded versions there.

I will also give a condensed version with photos in Part 2.

GHOSTS OF A DIFFERENT KIND!

GHOSTS OF A DIFFERENT KIND

Many people have lost a parent or grandparent, and those who have and who are sitting reading this, will probably relate. For those who haven't had to face this loss yet, then please read this and act on it. Don't leave it until too late.

How often do we take life for granted? Our parents will always be there, even when they get sick with cancer, old age or even a sudden accident … it will never be today that they will be lost to us, it will be another day. And because it will be another day, we put off asking important questions, because we are far too busy today. Asking who they really were in life. What were their life's experiences? They have lived through so many historic events and changes, and yet we always feel that we have plenty of time to sit down with them and find out what these were. Sadly, time runs out for most of us, and we are left with nothing but unanswered questions at the end of it. And it isn't until they leave us, and you are going through their life's collection of bits that you suddenly realise, you didn't know this person… not really. There was more to this person then just a father, or mother and you never took the time to know them properly as anything but. As you sit sorting through their items and you start to wander through their lives you realise they had another life prior to you.

Why have I brought this particular subject up in a blog? Where am I going with this?

Well, over 5 years ago, I received a call here in Australia, to say my dad had died back in the UK. It was a surreal feeling to say the least. I knew he had cancer and was in hospital, but for some reason I always felt I had time to get back there and see him one last time. Next week.. next week… well you know how it is. Now before you are thinking… Awwww, this is not what the blog is meant to be about. Because of what I do, I was totally at peace with his death, although heartbroken I wouldn't see him again. I knew he was ok and I coped well. Nope, I am going somewhere else with this blog as I need some advice.

Because of the shortness of my visit, my sister and myself had to sort out his belongings fairly quickly. We had a LOT of strange things happen that day, but those are for another time. In a nutshell I ended up with all his WWII memorabilia and she with the family history.

Upon returning home, I had more time to look through his belongings. It was then that it hit me; I really didn't know this man. As I looked through the photos he had taken after his landing on the D-day beaches, through war torn France and Belgium, I wondered who this handsome young man I was looking at really had been. There he was with his mates smiling at the camera back in the 1940s. What had he seen, experienced, felt?? Who were these overseas ladies that had sent this young man love letters and that he had kept all those years since the war?? Are they still alive?? They were pretty, as the photos he had also kept showed. Why had he kept an insignia off a German uniform that still bore the brown of blood staining after all these years? My sister once stated to him 'I could never shoot somebody else' to which he quietly replied, 'Sometimes when somebody is shooting at you, you'd be suprised' and left it at that.

But the biggest unanswered question of all, the one that still haunts me… who was the young German soldier in the small photo my father had kept safe all those years?

Was this soldier still alive now? Was he just a prisoner at the time? Or was it worse?

So, two reasons for this blog….

1) Does anybody know a way of tracing somebody, just from a WWII photograph???

2) And the moral of this story.

Parents are people long before they settle down and have children. I know, I am one. It is sometimes only when it is too late, that we wished we had asked more questions and found out more about them. There is much my kids don't know about me, I am just good old mum. One day I hope they will ask, and even if they don't maybe I will write it down for them, so that when it comes to their turn to wander through my life's collection, their questions will be answered fully on who I was.

Don't live with ghosts from somebody else's past…. Ask now before it is too late. Alternatively, don't leave somebody with your ghosts, talk to your children/Grandchildren, tell them who you were then and are now. They may not want to listen at this stage, but they will hear and remember and when you are gone, they won't feel the regret at not having asked.

A QUICK INTRODUCTION TO A PARANORMAL TEAM IN ADELAIDE

Hey, Now here's the hard bit... talk about ourselves!!! Ok...sigh.. here we go... My name is Alison and I was born in the UK and emigrated out to Australia around 19 years ago, (and never regretted a moment) after my Australian husband, then studying in UK, twisted my arm up my back and asked if I wanted to move to Australia... hmmm... let me think on that... warm and sunny or cold and wet????? Decisions Decisions!!! So here I am... his english souvenir that he brought back with him (and now cant get rid of lol). Since coming here I was able to make a new life and branch out to start fulfilling my interest in the paranormal by getting involved in investigative work. In 2002, after well over 10 years of investigating with various other groups, I teamed up with Jeff Fausch and became co-founder of Paranormal Field Investigators. Although Jeff now has retired and is working in the UFO field, PFI has continued and is still going from strength to strength.

We are a group of investigators who do not charge for our services and who try to study the paranormal in a neutral, unbiased way. We work more with technology and equipment when trying to catch evidence for the paranormal. We are not a public group and don't hold public meetings. The team is kept small and consist of professional photographers, technical experts and seasoned investigators. The most important factor being that we all work well together as a team and get on.

All investigations are handled in a professional, and when requested, confidential manner. We do also look at other subjects that come under the term of Paranormal e.g. UFOs, Psychic Abilities, Cryptozoology and much more.

VIDEOS

My new hobby and love is video editing and this will probably becoming quite apparent the more you look at this profile!! Please be assured though, that video clips aren't our main focus... just my hobby. We take paranormal research very seriously and these are just small glimpses of years of this painstaking research. They are just there simply for you hopefully to enjoy, much like if I painted a picture for you.