By Donald R. Serfass

dserfass@tnonline.com

Many believe hauntings happen for a reason.

It's just a matter circumstances, they say.

Spirits are nothing more than restless energy.

"Sometimes they just didn't move on," says Kerri Lee Schultz of Mechanicsville.

If that's true, then it just might explain the eerie events reported for decades atop Broad Mountain near Gordon.

It happens where Rattling Run Creek tumbles over rocks along deserted Old Gordon Mountain Road. Hidden among towering trees and overgrown bushes is the site of Schuylkill County’s most enduring, unsolved murder — as horrific and relevant today as it was 93 years ago.

Gruesome discovery

It was Palm Sunday, April 5, 1925.

Claude and Mary Duncan left church and decided to search the thick woods for flowering arbutus.

“They came across a scene where there were several crows cawing,” says Schultz. The couple followed the sound.

They were stunned by a sickening discovery — a pair of human legs protruding from the bushes. It was the badly charred remains of a girl. She was adorned with jewelry, complete with rings on her fingers.

An autopsy performed by Deputy Coroner James Roth, Fountain Springs State Hospital, determined that the victim, age 20 to 24, had been dead from four to 10 days. Unable to pinpoint a cause, Roth concluded she apparently struggled for her life.

“Pure savagery,” says Schultz, who studied the case extensively.

“She was burned from her knees up. Her torso, top of her legs, arms and fingers and part of her head were burned,” she says, raising the question, had she been burned alive?

It would seem so.

The autopsy report indicates the body smelled of gasoline. It appears the woman was slightly conscious when it was poured on her and ignited.

According to newspaper accounts in the Mount Carmel Item and Shamokin Dispatch, authorities believe she had been killed at a different location and brought to Broad Mountain in order to conceal all traces of the crime.

Captain Samuel Gearhart of the Pennsylvania State Police looked into the matter, launching one of Pennsylvania’s largest murder investigations. Meanwhile, word spread like wildfire.

“The mystery, now one of the most perplexing in the annals of the coal region, has held the interest of hundreds of thousands of persons in all parts of the United States. Photographers from metropolitan newspapers have taken scores of shots of the scene,” reported the Mount Carmel Daily News on April 27, 1925.

Ghost fever

Within months of the murder, reports of unexplained happenings began to surface.

Motorists claimed their vehicles were shutting off when they drove near the site. Others said they heard mysterious cries.

“Spiritualists from New York and Boston are on their way here to investigate,” reported the Mount Carmel Item on July 23. The tragedy drew curiosity seekers from all over the country, fueled by reports of glowing apparitions and bloodcurdling screams. Broad Mountain is haunted, they said. Stay away!

In fact, many still say so. The stories continue. Locals are aware of the Broad Mountain Ghost, also known as the Gordon Mountain Ghost. People yearn for answers, including Schultz.

Growing up in the Pottsville area, she was aware of the legend.

“I always heard about it. But was there any truth to it?”

She felt driven to seek answers, and Schultz is uniquely qualified to do so.

She works as a computer programmer for a Berks County corporation. Schultz deals in facts and data. She also happens to be a spiritual psychic, a medium channeler and investigator.

To get to the bottom of the story, she joined with paranormal experts Allen “Wolfshadow” Phillips, founder of Ghost Hunters Inc., and Mike Morris. The trio conducted a wilderness investigation along overgrown Old Mountain Road, which now resembles a narrow path best suited for hiking and quads. It’s located near newer Gordon Mountain Road and Interstate 81.

The three used tools as simple as flashlights but also as specific as a K-II EMF reader, which tracks sudden, erratic spikes in the electromagnetic field.

Their studies and findings are detailed in two YouTube videos.

Phillips sums up the experience: “There’s definitely something up there. My opinion, is it haunted? There’s a good possibility.”

Schultz agrees.

“I could feel her presence,” she says. “I feel she knew who abducted her, someone involved in crime. She knew who it was.”

In fact, police suspected all along that the victim may have been connected to human trafficking. There was a network of white slavery and prostitution prevalent in Schuylkill and Northumberland counties at that time, much of it linked to organized crime.

Sadly, after months and even years, the identity of the girl was never determined. Just as unsettling, her killer was never found.

Painful legacy

Schultz says circumstances of unrest might be at the core.

“It’s sad she’s still up there, that she didn’t move on. They never found out who she was. Maybe she’s regretting that her family doesn’t know what happened to her.”

And that’s the makings of a ghost, says Schultz. But there’s no reason to be afraid.

“A ghost is someone who didn’t cross over. People get scared of it, but a ghost is only energy. You have energy, too. People should be more afraid of the living.”

So don’t be frightened if you drive near the top of desolate Gordon Mountain Road near Rattling Run.

Don’t fear a misty human form appearing in front of your eyes, or the temporary sputtering of your car engine, or the muffled sound of cries and wails wafting through the trees.

Maybe you’re meant to be there at that moment.

You’re meant to be part of a story without an end.

You’re an unwilling witness to the energy of eternal injustice.