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The Ghost of Dead Woman’s Crossing

21 Mar, 2019

The Ghost of Dead Woman’s Crossing

In 1905, a young mother named Katie DeWitt James filed for divorce and boarded a train in Custer City, Oklahoma. She brought along her infant daughter with plans to visit her cousin across the state. The two never made it. For reasons unknown, Katie disembarked with a stranger and met an untimely end on a wagon crossing. Now her tortured spirit reportedly haunts the site of her death near Weatherford, Oklahoma.

The Crossing

Katie filed for divorce on July 6, 1905 and boarded the train with her daughter the next day. Her father, Henry, saw them off and all seemed well for awhile. However, Henry grew concerned when he didn’t hear from Katie after a few weeks and eventually hired a private detective to locate her.

The detective soon learned that Katie had gotten off the train at Weatherford rather than her intended destination. Witnesses saw her leaving in a wagon with a woman named Fannie Norton, a known prostitute who was also rumored to have killed a bartender. Some time later an agitated Fannie returned with Katie’s baby and handed the child to a farmer’s son before galloping away. The child was wrapped in a bloody dress, and Fannie’s wagon was also spattered with blood.

When authorities tracked Fannie down, she denied killing Katie and poisoned herself soon after questioning. A month later, a fisherman stumbled upon Katie’s remains along a creek near Weatherford. He found her beneath a wooden wagon crossing, a bullet lodged in her skull.

A heartbroken Henry interred Katie in Weatherford’s Greenwood Cemetery. An inscription on her tombstone reads: “How Many Hopes He Ended Here.” Katie’s daughter Lulu Belle returned to her father Martin but died when she was just eight years old.

The Dead Woman

According to local legend, Katie haunts the site of her murder. The old wagon crossing is long gone, but a concrete bridge was built nearby and it’s here where Katie roams. Locals call the bridge Dead Woman’s Crossing.

Eerie events at the bridge include dancing blue lights and the sound of creaky wagon wheels. Some visitors hear blood-curdling screams. Others hear an anguished woman calling out for her child. Those who dare walk along the creek at night may encounter the murdered woman’s spirit roaming the banks.

Unlike many legends, the history behind Dead Woman’s Crossing is undeniably true, whether or not the haunting is. Do you think Katie’s ghost roams the site of her murder? Or is the story nothing more than a chilling myth?

Source:

TRUE GHOST STORIES

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