The old house mom who worked for us for decades until she died(Mrs. T) haunts our house, especially the room right above her old apartment. She flicks the lights on and off, she opens and closes doors. She's also appeared in the mirrors of the room right above her old apartment and she's been known to talk to the girls in that room while they're trying to sleep!

pi phi love,
...colleen*

You can only sue for Libel if something was untrue. It may have been wrong for the paper to include the name ethically but i'm pretty sure you can't sue unless it was false information. Technically, papers can include something such as a rape victim's name in an article as well because it's public information, however decide that morally it's not right. savvy?

pi phi love,
...colleen*

If the police tell a paper not to print names, though, it is illegal for the paper to do so. I wonder if that happened in this case?

I've heard a lot about it in the news ( I live in Burlington). A girl was raped at Elon in the late 80s, but I don't remember which sorority she was in. She accused the wrong guy because he only looked like the rapist and the police arrested him. Years later they finally found the right guy, and released the other guy from jail.

I'm guessing it was a TB hospice or sanitarium - there used to be a lot of those out West (where the air was "better").

At Penn State, we had boring dorms for the sororities, and houses that started out as fraternities for the guys. The only ghosts I heard about was the ghost of "Old Coaly", a donkey that used to live on campus- not exactly terrifying.

We have, however, had a bunch of very creepy unsolved murders/disappearances - a girl raped and killed on her way from the bus station in the 40s, a grad student stabbed in the heart in the library stacks in the late 60s, someone stabbed in her apartment in the 90s, and, a few years ago, a Korean student simply vanished.

The murder in the library stacks has become legendary, and is often used to frighten freshmen...

Actually, I don't think that's true. Police can request, but not compel a news organization not to publish/broadcast something. Also, to be libel, there has to be proof not only that the information is false, but that it was published with full knowledge the information is wrong and intent to injure the other party. It is very hard to prove.

ETA:

"there are still ethical and legal issues surrounding that sort of situation that should have kept that paper from printing that information."

Again, there are not legal issues with publishing a rape victim's name unless a court has so ordered. Most newspapers and broadcast organizations will not, generally, identify a rape victim because they feel it's unethical -- but it is not a legal issue. Under some very special circumstances, news organizations do name victims as well as suspects.

The Kobe Bryant trial here in Colorado is a good case in point. A Tabloid ID'd the alleged victim, but mainline news media here in Denver still haven't used her name to the best of my knowledge.

i used to go to Elon.....i remember hearing about that. now Elon has some scary ghost stories. i know of one from when i went there. before Elon was Elon, it was an all girl's school. a fire broke out in the early 1900s in one of the dorms and a few girls ended up dying. the school rebuilt the section of the dorm that burned down and i had friends who told me that at the same time every night, they would hear footsteps running up and down the hallways on the third floor. they would go out in the hall to see what was going on and the window that leads to the fire escape would be wide open. the girls on the floor did some research and learned that the time these footsteps would be heard was the time the fire broke out and the reason the window kept opening was the ghosts trying to get out of the burning building.

Ugh this is so creepy. This is the guy who did the Michigan Murders.

http://www.state.mi.us/mdoc/asp/otis...cNumber=126833

Sometimes I look at criminals like him and wonder why people couldn't fight him off. I'm not meaning AT ALL to sound crass or inconsiderate. He just looks so pathetic, you know?

ok, we just covered this in my news reporting class, and the official standing on libel is that when you interview someone, and they ask for something, such as a name, to not be printed, that is a verbal contract that is binding, and if that information is printed, even though her name is factual, it is still considered libel.

Again, there are not legal issues with publishing a rape victim's name unless a court has so ordered. Most newspapers and broadcast organizations will not, generally, identify a rape victim because they feel it's unethical -- but it is not a legal issue. Under some very special circumstances, news organizations do name victims as well as suspects.

actually, a rape victims name is sensitive information, especially in a case such as this, and if there is any chance of releasing their name having an effect such as in this case, then the paper is not supposed to.
they never have to identify someone like that.

ok thanks for the info

That's true, but in most cases (I think there are now some rape shield laws in some states), this is a matter of professional ethics, not the law. That's a very big difference. Thankfully, most legitimate news organizations do try to protect the victim.

ok, we just covered this in my news reporting class, and the official standing on libel is that when you interview someone, and they ask for something, such as a name, to not be printed, that is a verbal contract that is binding, and if that information is printed, even though her name is factual, it is still considered libel.

I'd like to see some documentation on that. I can see it IF the reporter AGREES not to use the name and then does -- but I don't think that one person can form a contract without the other person agreeing.

Libel is extremely difficult to prove, and was made so by the framers of the laws in order to give some amount of freedom to the News Media -- and that was so the "Free Press" could/can act as a watchdog over government as well as other parts of society.

I'm not sure what this has to do with hauntings, but it's an interesting discussion.

Amen, i want to hear more about the fun scary stuff....there needs to be a legal forum here on the site

does anyone know....
 

i remember seeing a show on fox family(now abc family) when i was younger. It was one of those real scary story shows that went to haunted places.
well...in one show they had a segment on a university where apptly in the late 1800s to early 1900s a girl lived in a dorm room, and was making hot fudge(or something like that) and somehow her room got set on fire and she died. And apparently the room was restored and everything, but the door that was put on had a screaming face in the wood(not carved into it..but it looked like it was natural), so they took the door down and put up a new one, but that one had the face too. I think they ended up putting a steel door up or something, but they kept the other door in storage.
does anyone know what college this is?

Re: does anyone know....
 

.whoa.
that's super creepy!