The Headless Ghost of Bannerman Park
“His story reads like that of Ichabod Crane,” reported The Evening Telegram, “but it’s strictly St. John's and the mystery of the headless ghost that’s haunting Bannerman Park.”
It happened on a Tuesday night in June of 1960.
Two St. John’s teens, Ernie Lester and John Kavanagh, were walking home after an evening of roller skating.
The journey took them along Circular Road, adjacent to Bannerman Park. It was a nice evening and nothing seemed out of the ordinary until the pair approached Rennies Mill Road, it was there things took a decidedly weird turn; weird enough that they were interviewed by the local papers.
“All of a sudden,” Lester told The Telegram, “behind the fence, there it was… it was dressed in a brown rawhide jacket… the neck open and the collar up. It stood there as if staring… but that’s the amazing part.”
It was amazing because the figure was incapable of staring — it had no eyes.
In fact, it had no head at all.
“From the collar up,” Lester said, “all I could see was black… and it was blowing as if silk.”
The teens responded to the situation as most of us probably would — they turned tail and ran.
“It sure gave me a bad scare,” recalled Lester, “I didn’t believe it… and I still don’t.”
“What is it, sir?” he asked The Telegram reporter.
While the Telegram reporter couldn’t enlighten Lester, the police had some thoughts.
Possibly Something
There was “possibly something” to it, Police Chef Edgar Pittman said. Though there hadn’t been any formal reports, rumours of several similar sighting had come to his attention.
Further evidence came by way of Signal Hill where, according to The Western Star, “a medium-sized youngster in a blue raglan, with his head under the coat, was prowling… he escaped before police arrived.”
I’ll leaving to you to weigh the evidence —
Did St. John’s have its own headless haunt in the 1960s, or was it home to a bunch of busy Brom Bones wannabes?
The truth, as Fox Mulder might say, is out there…
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Park ‘Ghost’ Mystery, The Evening Telegram, June 16, 1960
Two Young Boys Scared By ‘Ghost,’ The Western Star, June 20, 1960
Poltergeists in Flatrock? One Newfoundland newspaper paper seemed to think so when a series of unexplained fires plagued a family in the community in the early 1950s.