By Hope Whitney & Jacob Harris
The Tower
Grosse Pointe South HS
1st Place Division 2, News Writing
Human Interest Feature
JUDGING CRITERIA
- Lead captures attention, arouses curiosity
- Emphasizes new element, fresh angle
- Colorful, lively presentation; effective form/style
- Reflects adequate research, sound interviewing techniques
- Avoids summaries of published materials
- Effective use of facts/quotes
- Interesting; appeals to the emotions
- Proper diction/grammar
With Halloween just around the corner, the rave around haunted houses is at its annual peak. While haunted houses may be great fun to visit with friends this time of year, living in one is a different story.
Grosse Pointe residents Boris Bosnjak and Danielle Ryan have lived in their house, located on Moran, for a year. According to Bosnjak, they have experienced many paranormal happenings at their home.
Ryan said one such occurrence happened in the kitchen, where not only did the lights mysteriously turn on, but all the panel switches were turned up. She also saw a figure walk into their home office. Thinking it was Bosnjak, Ryan followed the figure into the office, where no one was found.
The activity began when they started renovating the previously-neglected backyard, where they discovered two tombstones dating back to before the Civil War. Bosnjak said he originally thought the gravestones were from a previous owner’s pet, or a memorial stone, but that was not the case. One of the tombstones was for an unnamed infant and the other was for a one-year-old.
“During the mid 1800s, it was pretty customary to bury family members in the backyard,” Bosnjak said. “It wasn’t beyond unreasonable that there were babies buried back there.”
Bosnjak said he researched the family name on the tombstones and discovered they were of the Parkhurst family, residents of Grosse Pointe in the 1850s. The family lived in the area before moving to Chicago, where the father, Dr. Silas Parkhurst, had a medical practice. Bosnjak said the Parkhursts had seven children, only two of whom lived past the age of seven. The rest of the family is said to be buried in western Michigan.
Ryan said they were initially unsure how to handle the situation. Ryan contacted Grosse Pointe Farms City Hall, who immediately dispatched police to the house. The police said finding old gravestones is fairly common, and that it was up to them to decide whether or not to dig up the graves, donate them or just leave them alone. The couple decided to leave the mysterious gravestones alone, but that was not the last time they experienced the paranormal.
“Immediately that weekend (after discovering the tombstones), stuff started happening in the house,” Ryan said.
According to paranormal researcher Sara Villani, there are many common symptoms of paranormal experiences. Villani and her two sisters have been going on paranormal investigations for 20 years.
“Some of the general symptoms of paranormal activity would be feeling like you’re being watched, hearing voices or laughter or items being moved,” Villani said. “I have had a lot of people say they’ve seen apparitions.”
Ryan said the next week after the light switch incident, she and Bosnjak used their outdoor grill for the first time, which was located near the gravestones.
“I was at home sitting at the table on a conference call, and we had these big barbecue tongs that (Bosnjak) used over the weekend,” Ryan said. “The barbecue tongs were just sitting on the counter; nothing was touching them. All of a sudden I heard a flick. I turned around and the tongs were bouncing up and down, as if someone was moving them.”
Both Bosnjak and Ryan said they were at first skeptical about the occurrences and tried to find ways to logically justify the episodes.
“I’ve heard stories of things happening in the older parts of Grosse Pointe,” Bosnjak said. “It’s weird, but I don’t think these people are crazy or malicious or anything like that. It tests your sanity. You look for rational explanations immediately and in some cases, there just aren’t any.”
Bosnjak said the most chilling incident yet involved their Amazon Alexa.
“I was cooking dinner, and we always play music on our Alexa,” Ryan said. “(Alexa) will mess things up, she’ll misinterpret what you say, but she never prompts without saying her name, and I wasn’t talking. I was in the middle of cooking, the music was playing and all of a sudden she lit up like someone said her name, and I heard “Okay, play music for toddlers now.” It started playing Baby Shark.” Boris and Ryan do not have kids of their own that would have prompted this occurrence