82: Kings Island
Kathryn (00:10)
Hello, welcome to I Scream You Scream. We're your weekly nope, we are not your Wiggly. Sorry.
Gina (00:19)
It's a tongue twister.
Kathryn (00:20)
One more time. where your weekly scoop of the most chilling histories, mysteries, and paranormal perplexities. My name is Kathryn
Gina (00:28)
I'm Gina.
Kathryn (00:29)
And for the month of June, we are telling stories about amusement parks while we eat chiro flavored ice cream. And just as a reminder, this episode is sponsored by Clobear Money Coach. So if you're ready to start investing but unsure exactly how to get started, visit getlazynow.com. But until then, grab a spoon and let's dig in.
Gina (00:53)
Hooray.
Kathryn (00:54)
Since I finished my ice cream so quickly because I had like two bites and it was half melted, I have a very special shout out. We have a couple special shout outs today, actually. ⁓ one, we want to give a huge welcome to V to the Patreon. Welcome. Very happy to have you.
Gina (01:11)
Welcome.
And I have a very
special shout out to everyone on ⁓ TikTok who responded to our video asking what weird things their parents wouldn't let them say. So I'm gonna share some of the highlights with you because we got some really good answers. Just for context for anyone who ⁓ I can't remember which episode we did this in, but for anyone who hasn't listened to it, Kathryn and I were recently talking about words that your parents wouldn't let you say as a kid.
Kathryn (01:20)
Yes Yes, I love it.
I don't either.
Gina (01:40)
Like for example, I wasn't allowed to say the word butt. I had to say bottom. posted on TikTok asking what people weren't allowed to say as kids. And some of the highlights were toddler. They weren't allowed to say the word toddler, which I don't get. Mm-hmm. The word fart.
Kathryn (01:54)
What? I wonder if that's ⁓
far yeah, I've heard that one before. Yeah, that one was a response we got on Instagram.
Gina (02:00)
I get that one.
ain't which I I think I also was not allowed to 'cause ain't ain't a word.
Kathryn (02:06)
Hey.
'Cause it ain't in the dictionary, yeah.
Gina (02:12)
Mm-hmm. And then we got a a very British one, which is water, but without the T pronounced. So instead of saying water, if you say like water that's bad. It's very bad. Yes, exactly. And then my personal favorite one, this one is so fucking funny. It's the word gazebo. And it's because when they were a little kid, and tell instead of telling someone to fuck off, they would say, Go buy a gazebo.
Kathryn (02:23)
Wu How it's how it's correctly pronounced, yeah. Wuh
What? Okay. I don't understand that one at all. I wonder if that one's a British thing too. I've never heard of that before.
Gina (02:45)
It has it has to
have been like I don't know, one of their maybe their parents were buying a gazebo or something and they used it as like a jokey kinda like, go buy a gazebo and they were a kid and so they adopt it was it had to have been one of those, you know.
Kathryn (02:55)
Yeah.
Yeah,
yeah. I'm curious about the toddler one too. I wonder if it's like
The kid was the older kid and they didn't want the little one to grow up. So we we don't call him a toddler. He's still a baby, or like something like that. And then it just grew or something. I don't know. That's yeah, I've never heard that before. Okay, these are really interesting. We did post this on Instagram as well, but it was just the normal like shut up, like stuff that no one was allowed to say. Yeah. I feel like there was another one too, but I don't remember. I didn't document it. Those were fantastic gazebo. Wow, wasn't that?
Gina (03:15)
Something
I don't know. I have no idea.
⁓ yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, gazebo is so and then actually I went on the person who commented that I went on their profile just 'cause I was like, You're hilarious. What's your deal? And their oops, sorry, that sound was playing. I was on TikTok on my phone looking at their profile. My bad. ⁓ their like profile description is what it's like still alive and kicking, like literally I will kick you or something like that. It was so funny.
Kathryn (03:36)
Expecting that one at all.
⁓ I couldn't hear it. It's talking.
Ha ha ha.
Gina (04:06)
So yeah, I I wanted to share because these absolutely cracked me up.
Kathryn (04:10)
Yeah, those are great. Not at all w what I was expecting. I was very much expecting the basic
Swear words. Sorry, I have my window open 'cause it's hot as balls right now. Yeah. Damn, that's okay.
Gina (04:22)
Yeah, we swung in the opposite direction and it's now pretty cold over here.
know what else people do when it's hot? They go to amusement parks. And I have a story about an amusement park for you. all seriousness though, many, many, many content warnings today. This is gonna be a pretty dark, pretty tragic episode. It's contain talk of electrocution, drowning.
Kathryn (04:33)
Yes.
Excellent.
Gina (04:52)
Animal attacks and the death of a child. So big heads up for this one guys.
Kathryn (04:58)
Listen, I have to say, I did not realize that an amusement park month was gonna be so dark. We did this as like a fun summer thing. And so far both of our first two stories have been like real aggressively dark. So super sorry. I can't promise it's gonna get better. I think mine's a little bit nicer next next week, but yeah, what this was not this was not planned.
Gina (05:10)
Yeah.
Yeah.
I still I haven't decided what I'm doing for my second amusement park one because I am trying to find one that has a bit more like levity. Yeah. Yeah.
Kathryn (05:29)
Who knew? I don't know. Was not expecting this, but I'm
buckled up and prepared.
Gina (05:37)
Okay, good. Buckle up, hold on to your butts and your hearts. King's Island is an amusement park in Mason, Ohio. I personally have never been there, but growing up in the Midwest it was a really popular destination, especially during like summer vacation. I knew a lot of people whose families would go there. Have you ever been to King's Island?
Kathryn (05:59)
No, I literally have never heard of this place ever. Really? I've heard of ⁓ like I've heard of like the Midwestern ones that I know people went to are Six Flags and Cedars Point. I've never heard of King's Island. I thought this was like a British thing. Wow, okay.
Gina (06:02)
What really? Okay. Okay. ⁓
okay. So King's ⁓ So King's
Island is actually owned by Six Flags.
Kathryn (06:22)
Okay. Yeah, I've never heard of this. Yeah.
Gina (06:23)
So it's part of the big ch Yeah, yeah. So it's
in Ohio, one of the big ones. ⁓ I have been to Cedars Point, extremely fun. Loved it there, but I my god, so much fun. If you like roller coasters, my god.
Kathryn (06:28)
Okay. Yeah. I have too. It's so much fun. Yeah.
Yes, the best. I will say mine was I grew up right in the between two six flags. I was equal distance between the St. Louis and Chicago one. So it was like there was no reason to go anywhere else. Anyway.
Gina (06:44)
⁓
Yeah,
that's yeah, we always went to the Six Flags Great America when I was growing up. Yeah. But King's Island. It opened in nineteen seventy two. It was not always owned by Six Flags. And today it welcomes millions of guests a year to enjoy over one hundred attractions, including fifteen roller coasters and a replica of the Eiffel Tower.
Kathryn (06:53)
Yeah. Yeah.
Ooh, fancy.
Gina (07:15)
There's one thing Americans love, it's stick in the Eiffel Tower where it has no business being.
Kathryn (07:18)
my god, we love
a knife to Eiffel Tower statue so much. We love it here. ⁓
Gina (07:23)
So funny. That always cracks me up. ⁓
King's Island as an amusement park is also absolutely crawling with ghosts and reports of paranormal encounters. And when we look at the history of the park, it is very easy to understand why. Over the decades, King's Island has been home to multiple horrific deaths, including machinery accidents, wildlife attacks.
And a day so tragic it is now known as Black Sunday.
Kathryn (07:58)
Sorry, I'm just like already, like what the fuck is this place? I cannot believe I've never heard of this.
Gina (08:04)
Yeah, well I I knew that it existed. I knew it was like an amusement park. That was the end of it. And then I started looking into the history, and it's like I had to cut things out to make this only one episode. There's a lot to King's Island, yeah. So let's start at the beginning. Before King's Island was built, part of the land was home to Dog Street Cemetery, also known as King's Island Cemetery these days.
Kathryn (08:11)
Mm-hmm.
Wow.
Gina (08:33)
When you first arrive at the park, it's kind of off to the side. ⁓ it's like in between the main parking lot and a campground. So it's still there. Like you can still go visit the cemetery. And it's been there since the early 1800s. So a very, very long time, especially by American standards. when it was in use, there were at least 79 burials at the cemetery. And most of them occurred between the 1820s and the 1880s.
Over time, it stopped being used as much. And then by the time they decided to build King's Island as an amusement park in the 70s, the cemetery was pretty forgotten to the point where when they were building the amusement park, construction workers had a really hard time finding this cemetery. Like they knew it was there, but it was so overgrown and kind of forgotten and neglected that it was difficult to locate, which is kind of sad. But eventually they did find it. Cemetery was cleaned up.
And you can still go there and pay your respects to this day. many people do, but many of the visitors are only there for one specific person. Missouri Jane Galliner, aka the girl in the blue dress.
Kathryn (09:44)
⁓ my goodness, okay.
Gina (09:46)
Yeah.
Also, love the name Missouri Jane. That's adorable. like an like MJ, you know? I've never heard that version of MJ before. Super cute. So Missouri Jane was a child in the 1840s who unfortunately died when she was just five years old, and she was buried at this cemetery. And it is said that her spirit still walks the park.
Kathryn (09:51)
I do too. Mm mm, that's what I was thinking. Yeah.
Gina (10:12)
When employees or guests report seeing her, she's always described in the same way. She's like this little blonde hair, blue-eyed girl in a blue dress, also reportedly a very playful spirit. so you know how like at theme parks when you're on a ride, the employees operating the ride are always like in that little booth thing.
Kathryn (10:33)
Yeah.
Gina (10:34)
So at a ride at Kings Island called Whitewater Canyon, the little booth there is called Tower Two. And there are reports of Missouri Jane throwing rocks and pebbles at the tower. Like, yeah, like employees have literally reported seeing a pebble picked up by unseen hands and then thrown at the metal part of the tower to make a clanging sound. Often accompanied by the sounds of little giggles or even singing.
Kathryn (10:47)
Yes.
Gina (11:02)
also hangs out inside Tower Two. Guests who are on the ride have reported looking up at that booth and seeing her face in the window. To the point where guests will like go to park security and say, hey, there's like a little girl somewhere in the employee area of this ride. They don't have a parent with her, you know, like here's her exact description. And when the security guard goes looking, there's no one there.
We aren't 100% sure why she likes this specific ride so much, but there are rumors that it's because it's actually very close to the scene of her death. Whitewater Canyon is a water ride. like one of those where you ⁓ kind of like sit in a big circle in a floaty thing and it just shoots you around. And it's really close to a lake. And the rumor is that Missouri Jane drowned in that lake when she was five, and so that's why she hangs out there so much. But
It's also not the only place she hangs out. There are also reports of her standing at the front entrance to the park. Very often a story will go that you know, security guards will see a little girl in a blue dress standing there all by herself, and they'll go over to see if she's lost or if, you know, her parents are coming back or something like that, and they she will just disappear into thin air right in front of them. also been seen at one of the on-site restaurants.
Which was very cleverly named the International Restaurant, in case anyone had any questions about the food they were gonna get. Not American food.
Kathryn (12:31)
Yeah.
Do
do they have like pizza from Italy and tacos from Mexico and yeah.
Gina (12:38)
Spaghettios and well,
so sadly for us, this restaurant is now closed. So we will never get to enjoy the cuisine of the inner we can only dream of what international food might taste like someday. ⁓ but I think yeah, I think they use it as an event space now. But back in 2012, there was an episode of Ghost Hunters where they reportedly had an encounter with Missouri Jane in this restaurant, and they used their like fancy ghost recording devices to capture a message from her.
Kathryn (12:45)
okay. Bummer. Yes. Yeah.
Gina (13:09)
This is kind of sad. Her message was trying to find my mom.
Kathryn (13:13)
No ⁓ my god, stop Ugh
Gina (13:15)
Yeah, I know. I did
read that her parents were buried really far away from her. Her grave is obviously in Ohio, and I read that her parents are buried in Illinois. So when people ask why she still hangs around the park, a really common answer is that she's waiting for her mom to come back.
Kathryn (13:35)
Ugh my god, no, I hate this. I hate this podcast
Gina (13:38)
I know, I know. It's it
I am screaming.
Kathryn (13:45)
Hate that. Ugh.
Gina (13:46)
I know,
it is sad. But it does sound like she finds ways to have fun at the park while she waits. Back when Kings Island used to have a tram system, she loved messing with the tram drivers. And for a while the park employees actually used to call her tram girl because of this. ⁓ It's just me.
Kathryn (13:52)
Okay.
Okay, is this you? A little blonde-haired blue-eyed ghost
throwing rocks at towers and messing with trams. This is so Gina coded.
Gina (14:12)
I know. I
astr I'm astral projecting when I sleep to K to King's Island that I've never been to.
Kathryn (14:18)
Yeah. Maybe. You used to sleepwalk,
maybe that's where you were going.
Gina (14:25)
That is true. I slept sleptwalked all the way from Florida to Ohio when I was five. And I did it every night. Uphill both ways. ⁓ anyway, yes. So in as her in her time as tram girl, one of the more well-known stories here goes that one night a tram driver was doing one more swoop around the parking lot just to see if anyone needed a ride before he finished.
Kathryn (14:29)
It's impressive.
Gina (14:51)
And he just so happened to glance in the direction of the cemetery where he saw something move. He kind of brushed it off because he was like, you know, it could be like an animal or it could be someone walking to the campground nearby or whatever. And when he looked back in front of him to keep going, it was right at the second where he saw a little girl in a blue dress run in front of the tram. And it was one of those things where
Like right before an accident, you know you're gonna hit this person, but you can't like do anything to change it, so you just have to like break and close your eyes and pray. That's exactly what he did. Slammed on the brakes, closed his eyes, nothing happened. There was no thud, there was no feeling of hitting anything, there was no scream, it was nothing. And when he opened his eyes, there was also nothing in front of him.
Kathryn (15:22)
Yeah.
Gina (15:43)
no damage to the tram, no little girl, no evidence she had been there, nothing. The next day he resigned.
Kathryn (15:51)
my gosh. Yeah, that's valid. Yeah.
Gina (15:53)
I know.
Yep. And there are a ton of stories just like that one. Unfortunately, ⁓ Kings Island got rid of the trams a while back, so there there are not any new stories about this. But if you just Google like tram girl Kings Island or Missouri Jane tram, you'll find so many accounts of her messing with the tram drivers. It's really funny. ⁓ and the girl in the blue dress, you know, it's a pretty old story, died in the 1800s. She's been there ever since. But
The first fatality at King's Island as an amusement park also happened relatively early on. It came in 1976, just four years after the park opened. Back then, Kings Island had a whole section of the park that was kind of like a zoo where guests could get on a monorail and basically ride through a bunch of different animal habitats. So kind of like a drive-in zoo, but you were on a train.
They had tons of different animals you could see. They had elephants, there were antelope, there were tigers, lions, lots and lots of different things. And in 1976, there was a horrific accident with one of the rangers. His name was John McCann.
But he went by Jack, so that's what I'll be calling him. And he had joined the ranger team about a year earlier in 1975. And part of his job as a ranger was basically just to like drive around the habitats in a Jeep to make sure that everything was okay. So, like, for example, there's a story about how one time he was driving around, you know, as was his job, and he noticed that an antelope had gotten into the tiger habitat, which is like obviously not great, because you don't want
An antelope to get mauled in front of like children and families. And so he helped the antelope get back to safety. It's like part of his job was just to make sure everything was in tip top shape. Based on what I read, he was very comfortable interacting with the wildlife, to the point where he would get in trouble pretty often for like playing with the big cats or getting out of his Jeep when he wasn't supposed to. Yeah, which is like you're never supposed to get out of.
Kathryn (18:00)
Ooh.
Gina (18:07)
A jeep when big cats are around. ⁓ but it really didn't seem to bother him. He would interact with the cats, he would play with them, he would let them like jump onto his car and stuff. And there was even an incident where a lion jumped onto the door of his car. And just to paint a picture, it was a jeep that like had the bars around it, so it's not like nothing could get in. But this lion's paw did get through and it clipped Jack on the neck, and he had to get seven stitches.
Kathryn (18:07)
Yeah.
Gina (18:36)
Yeah. And even then he like he he didn't quit the job. He was very chill about the animals. Like from what I read, it seemed like ⁓ you know, it's not their fault. They're animals. And he understood that kind of thing. But unfortunately Yeah, yeah, like
Kathryn (18:37)
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's so valid. I mean like that's
valid. I still would like peace out.
Gina (18:56)
Yeah.
I mean meat as much as I love animals, I I wouldn't trust myself to not try and play with the big cats, which means I should not be around big cats.
Kathryn (18:58)
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, that reminds me of what is that like gif or tweet or whatever it is that circulates talks about how like, ⁓ my toxic trait is thinking that I could like tame an insert apex predator here because it could sense my whimsy or whatever. That's when we saw that bear up north in the Kiwina.
Gina (19:25)
Yeah.
Mm.
Kathryn (19:29)
I
literally was about to be like, new friend. Like I was afraid of my genuinely I was afraid of my reaction to it. Like I wanted to go say hi. And I was like, God, that's so dangerous. Why am I thinking like this right now?
Gina (19:34)
It'll sense that I'm different.
Yeah, I think I'll stay in my city where I there's no chance of me coming across a tiger or something. Just wouldn't be good for anyone. ⁓ but yes, Jack did not feel the same way that we do. ⁓ and unfortunately on July twenty fourth, nineteen seventy six, it all went too far. At twelve forty five PM, Jack told one of his colleagues that he was gonna go check on some of the cats, and he drove off in his Jeep.
Kathryn (19:46)
Yeah.
Yeah. No.
Gina (20:13)
It was a really, really hot day, like Midwest in the middle of July. So after Jack left, an another ranger got on the radio to Jack and was basically just like, hey, I have a pitcher of ice water with your name on it. To no answer from Jack. The ranger tried again, still no answer. So the ranger went looking for him, and he eventually found Jack's car in the lion habitat. He noticed that the doors to the Jeep were closed.
And so his first thought was like, all right, well, like it's a hot day. Jack must have just fallen asleep in the car. He's probably in there taking a nap right now. So he pulls up, because he's also in a jeep. He pulls up a little bit to see what's going on. And that is when he saw Jack's body, which was not in the car, but on the ground with six lions on top of him.
Kathryn (20:59)
Oof.
Whoa. Yikes. Like actively? Ooh. I was not expecting that.
Gina (21:07)
Yeah. Yeah. It went sideways very fast. Yes. And
I'll say they were they were actively engaging with his body. That's about as graphic as I'm gonna get. Yeah. Already it was very clear that Jack was dead. There was no saving him from what had happened. So to try and get his body away from the lions
Kathryn (21:19)
Uff, jajks.
Gina (21:30)
Every ranger, except the ones in the watchtowers, were called onto the scene, along with a few other park officials, as you would expect in a situation like this. They were eventually able to get Jack's body out of there. And once the lions were like under control and in a different area, they were also able to examine the scene. And the weird thing was that Jack's car doors were closed, like I said, but there was also blood inside the car.
Which at first like it was really confusing because his body was on the road. And so, like, did he get hurt in the car and then leave the car? That would make no sense because he would be walking into a pride of lions. Like, what could have happened here? after a forensic examination, an autopsy, an analysis of the scene, the whole shebang, they concluded that this is what happened. Jack pulled up in the lion habitat because he needed to go to the bathroom.
Kathryn (22:02)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah.
Gina (22:30)
And he decided he was just gonna go outside. And they know this because they found evidence of it nearby. When Jack exited his car, he didn't bring his gun with him because they were required to carry guns, ⁓ especially when they were around, you know, big dangerous cats. he didn't bring his gun with him, and he also did not see the lion hiding in the underbrush. When Jack was done going to the bathroom, the lions attacked him. He was
literally caught with his pants down. He managed to get away and get to his Jeep and get the door open, hence the blood in the Jeep, but the lions were able to drag him away before he could shut the door. And then once he was fully back outside during the struggle, the door to the Jeep was pushed shut without Jack inside it. So that's how the blood got in the Jeep, but Jack's body was outside. And all this led to his death at just
twenty years old.
Kathryn (23:31)
why was I imagining a way older person?
Gina (23:34)
He's only 20. He's so young. I know, yeah. His death generated a huge amount of media coverage, but ultimately there were not huge consequences for King's Island. I read that the park was fined $800 by OSHA, but it's been pretty hard to verify. And it kind of gets back to what we were talking about earlier. Like when it comes to wild animals, there's very limited justice to be had.
Kathryn (23:35)
Wow, that's so young. Damn.
I yeah, I don't know.
I don't I guess I don't know the legalities of that well enough to like know I it I feel like none of that I'm trying to say this in a way like I'm not trying to victim blame or anything. I just I don't know how like I don't know w like what King's Island could have done. You know what I mean? Yeah. Was that the consensus? Yeah, okay.
Gina (24:17)
Right, yeah.
And that's ultimately what yeah, that that that's why. Because they did have that was the consensus because
I I'm also not trying to victim blame, but just in the interest of telling the whole story and answering, you know, to your point, Jack was given stern talkings to multiple times about animal safety and things like not exiting his Jeep in front of the cats, ⁓ following safety procedures and ultimately it was human error that led to this. It wasn't
Kathryn (24:38)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm.
Yeah. No.
Gina (24:53)
The animal's fault. It wasn't the fault of the people setting the
policies. It was a tragic, tragic accident, but not one that King's Island was in a position to prevent.
Kathryn (25:04)
Right. I also feel like maybe this is just maybe this has nothing to do with anything. But
Peeing on like a wild animal's territory, not a great idea. feel like that's a huge threat to them, right? Isn't that like a sign of like they would interpret that as him trying to like threaten them or whatever? So they were probably like, fuck you, dude, and like went after him. I don't know, maybe I'm making that up.
Gina (25:18)
I mean that's
Yeah. I mean I I don't know. I don't know how lines are But at the at the very least,
they would have noticed that he was in a vulnerable position. You know what I mean? So yeah. Something along those lines. safari experience no longer exists, by the way. You cannot go there. It went through a few name changes before ultimately shutting down in nineteen ninety three. ⁓ and it's been replaced. That area is now populated with a few different attractions, including a roller coaster named
Kathryn (25:38)
Yeah. Yeah.
Makes sense.
Gina (25:58)
The banshee, which has a pretty dark irony to it.
Kathryn (26:00)
⁓ Yeah.
Gina (26:03)
There was also an incident with this safari experience where like fifty baboons escaped. So yeah.
Kathryn (26:09)
Baboons are scary.
Honestly, I'm more afraid of baboons than I am of lions. They're mean motherfuckers. Violent. Baboons are scary.
Gina (26:15)
Heard terrifying th yeah, and there were fifty of
but also please
I wish that I could say what happened to Jack was the last tragic accident at the park, but about eight years after the incident with the lions, there was another incident on the park's replica of the Eiffel Tower. And this incident is the origin story behind another very famous King's Island ghost, Tower Johnny.
on May thirteenth, nineteen eighty-three, a boy named John Harter was at King's Island for grad night, which was this thing where like King's Island would keep the park open late for graduating high school seniors. So it was kind of like a class party situation. They could ride the rides, there were like musical acts, they could go see all that kind of thing. It sounds like super fun.
And John was visiting with a group of his fellow seniors from Hayes High School in Delaware. At some point, the group that he was with realized that John had disappeared. And they were kind of like, Yeah, you know, we're sure he's okay. He had an argument with his girlfriend earlier that night. We've been drinking, like, he probably just is feeling a little irritable. He wants to go blow off some steam somewhere. He's still in the park. We'll find him. It's okay.
So they had dinner and then they headed over to the Eiffel Tower. And let's talk about the Eiffel Tower for a sec, because understanding kind of like how it works and what the attraction is is important to the rest of this story. So it's about three times smaller than the one in Paris, And the way the tower at King's Island works is guests can go up to one of three different platforms to get a really pretty view of the park.
So it's not like a roller coaster or anything, it's just like a viewing platform. Three different viewing platforms. That specific night, because it was open for grad night, it was late, it wasn't like the normal levels of park attendance. Only two of the platforms were open. There was the 50-foot tower and the 275-foot tower. And only one elevator was running for the whole attraction. The elevator operator.
was bringing a round of guests back down to the ground. And as the elevator kind of like settled into the earth, it did it did like a weird little hop thing. It was like the kind of feeling that you get when someone jumps while you're on an elevator. It was like that. And so the elevator operator turned to the guests and was like, hey, did any of you guys just jump? And all of them said no. So when the guests got off the elevator,
Kathryn (28:40)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (28:51)
The operator talks to another employee that was on the ground and they were like, hey, I think something might be up with this elevator. I'm gonna take it back up just to make sure there's not like mechanical issues. And when the elevator started going up, another employee who was at the top of the tower heard a big bang sound and then a scream. And that's when the elevator operator saw blood through the elevator windows.
They wound up finding John's body on the roof of the elevator. I know. Yeah. I know. Dude, yeah, yeah. Cops and detectives were dispatched pretty much immediately to the scene around ten twenty PM, and upon examination they noticed that
Kathryn (29:18)
Whoa.
What the fuck? It's like a horror movie. Ugh. Yikes.
Gina (29:40)
That on top of the blood on the elevator itself, there was also a lot of blood on the elevator's counterweight. Because I didn't know this. I'm gonna explain it just in case anyone's like me and doesn't know how elevators work. But when an elevator goes up or down, there's a counterweight that goes in the opposite direction. so investigators were confused about how blood could have been in both places, because it's like there's no easy way for a guest to access either the counterweight.
Or the elevator shaft. Like how did he even get here? Let alone how did he get hurt here? So of course they ended grad night early. They evacuated the park, but John's friends were still looking for him. At this point, John had not been identified. So as the park was being evacuated, his friends found a security guard and they were like, hey, we're like leaving because we have to, but our friend is missing. Like, what do we do? What is the protocol for this? And the security guard
Told them that there had been an accident, someone died, they were looking for someone who could help identify the body. And their description of John matched the victim to a T. Apparently it was one of John's friends who positively ID'd him, and then I think there was an official ID from a family member later on. An autopsy revealed that John's cause of death was, quote, a crushing injury of the head.
Kathryn (31:05)
my god.
Gina (31:06)
And this combined with his blood alcohol level, which was 0.21%, caused the sheriff's sheriff's office investigators to believe that this is what happened. After John left the group, he went to go to the Eiffel Tower, went up to the 50 foot platform, so the lower one, and then there was like a fence there that he climbed over to access an emergency stairwell.
Once he was on the emergency stairwell, he climbed all the way to the top, climbed over a railing, and then walked out onto one of the structural beams. It just so happens that exactly where he was standing on the beam and the way he was standing, when the elevator was going down to let those guests off, the counterweight came up and he got tangled in the cables, which is what made the elevator do that little hop.
thing. And so when the elevator came back up for a machinery check, the counterweight pulled him off the beam and caused him to fall the elevator shaft.
It was an unbelievable tragedy that still leaves people really confused to this day because it is just such a bizarre freak accident and it was wildly out of character for John. At first, there were a lot of questions of like, could this have been a mental health crisis? Was this maybe a suicide attempt? But there was nothing in John's history to support that.
He was described as loving life. He was captain of the track team who wanted to go to the Olympics someday. He was planning on going to Kent State to study accounting. And like those things do not mean that he wasn't depressed or suffering. But it's uncommon to see someone who's suicidal planned for the future like that. So people also wondered, like, okay, could this have been like an attention seeking thing?
Because he was known for being like the center of attention. He really liked when everyone's eyes were on him. But the problem with that is that he wasn't doing this in front of anyone. Like there was no one in the elevator shaft to get attention from. So that doesn't really check out either.
Kathryn (33:17)
Yeah.
Gina (33:21)
We will never know.
Kathryn (33:21)
I mean I f I feel like I I'm not gonna speak for everyone, obviously, but like
I've had intrusive thoughts. I've wanted to climb fences. I've wanted to go to hazardous areas to see what the hell they're hiding from me or whatever. He was there for a graduation night and was a teenager. Like that to me is enough to believe that that is just what happened. Like he was there having fun with his buddies, got a little too brave.
And like did the thing that we all think of doing while we're standing in line for a ride. Like, that's it's pretty straightforward to me.
Gina (33:59)
Yeah.
But we'll just never know though. Like there's just no, like, there's no camera footage, there's no evidence. Like, there's we we will never know if we we don't know for sure even if there was someone else with him that he was doing this, like in like like no idea. Yeah, yeah, we don't know. ⁓ there's still a lot of questions that linger, and people have reported having encounters with him ever since. Some have reported hearing his voice come from the elevator shaft.
Kathryn (34:04)
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah, that's what I was gonna ask. Yeah, okay. Okay.
Gina (34:30)
And also a lot of the attractions' electrical issues are chalked up to him. So sometimes, for example, the elevators will be delayed longer than they should. Sometimes the sensors will trip for no reason. And then some people have also reported seeing him near a roller coaster called The Beast, which and this part's a rumor. ⁓ King's Island allegedly stored the the elevator cables that killed him.
near that roller coaster. I I personally don't think that's true. I think they were other cables that people just like created a story about, but people have reported seeing his ghost there as well.
Kathryn (35:08)
That's so tragic. Like all these stories are of people so young.
Gina (35:12)
I kn dude, he was seventeen.
Kathryn (35:15)
Yeah, yikes.
Gina (35:17)
I know. And I'm about to tell you another really tragic one. I'm so sorry.
Kathryn (35:20)
That's okay.
Gina (36:22)
it's just around the corner from the area of the park that we were just talking about, the Eiffel Tower. what is now known as Black Sunday happened.
Kathryn (36:32)
Jesus Christ. Okay.
Gina (36:33)
I
no it is named that because on Sunday, June ninth, nineteen ninety-one, three people died and another was hospitalized in two separate incidents within two hours of each other at King's Island.
Kathryn (36:49)
Whoa, Jesus.
Gina (36:50)
Yeah.
It started at 8 30 p.m. when a twenty-two-year-old man named Timothy Binning was walking with his friend, and they were crossing a walkway near Bier Garden Lake. So they were right next to the water. And the lake had a fountain coming out of it. It was like one of those lake fountains that like blows the lake water up into the air. And Timothy reached over into the fountain to splash some water on his friend.
But when he touched the water, he was jolted with electricity, causing him to fall into the lake. Not realizing what had happened, his friend, a twenty one year old man named Eddie Haithcoat Jr., jumped into the water to save him, along with a twenty year old security guard named Darrell Robertson. And unfortunately they were also electrocuted upon entering the lake.
Timothy was severely injured, but he did survive, albeit he was burned pretty badly. Whereas Eddie and Darrell the ones who jumped in to help Timothy, did not survive. About an hour after that, a 32-year-old woman named Candy Taylor had an incident on a ride called Flight Commander. So remember how last week we were talking about those like swing rides where you sit on a seat and then you like they'd spin you in a circle?
Kathryn (38:06)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Gina (38:08)
So Flight Commander
was kind of like that, except you weren't in like a single seat. It was kind of a two-seater operation. And it could also do barrel rolls during the ride. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. And also instead of like a it being a chain that's connecting to the chair and spinning you around, it was like this big mechanical arm thing that you could control with a joystick during the ride. So while you were riding, you could decide like how high off the ground you wanted to be.
Kathryn (38:16)
Yeah.
⁓ wow. Okay.
Gina (38:37)
So Candy was on this ride, but she was riding it alone. There was no one in the seat next to her, which meant that when she somehow count came out of her safety restraints, she slid into the other seat and toppled out of the ride, causing her to fall 60 feet to her death.
Kathryn (38:55)
⁓ Jesus Christ.
Gina (38:57)
I know, worst fears.
Kathryn (38:59)
That is like, yeah, we were talking about that last time with, you know, like the worst the fear at an amusement park. Not that one is better or worse than the other, but like the mechanics and speed between like a ride in the 1920s and the 1990s is so different that like this is so much more aggressive.
Gina (39:23)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
And what's annoying about what the most annoying part of this to me is that in a lot of the press coverage, a lot a lot of it even now focuses on the fact that Candy had a blood alcohol level of zero point three percent when she died, which is really high and it suggests that like she might have passed out, which caused her to slip out of the restraints and fall. But a lot of people blame her death on her being drunk. Like even that like she's
referred to as like the drunk girl who died, which I really fucking hate, because it was the park's job to keep her safe. She did not do anything wrong.
Kathryn (39:54)
Yeah.
If your restraints require consciousness in order to stay inside of them, they are not properly restraining. That's the whole point of restraints.
Gina (40:11)
No,
but and just like there had to have been so many failures to let this out like both failures of like like a mechanical failure of the ride, like it not being designed properly, but also if someone is so drunk that you think it's dangerous to let them on the ride, don't let them on the fucking ride. were multiple points of failure which led to her death. None of them were her fault. So yeah, this was a a really, really dark, dark day at King's Island. ⁓ and in Candy's case, park officials blamed a design flaw.
Kathryn (40:14)
Yeah.
Mm.
my God, absolutely. Yeah.
Gina (40:40)
For the accident, they responded by improving the restraints of Flight Commander and adding seat dividers to prevent this the same Yeah, so they did do something about it, but the ride wound up closing in 1995. As for the electrified lake, OSHA determined that it was due to a non-functional GFCI in an aerator pump.
Kathryn (40:46)
⁓ that's good.
Hmm. Valid.
Gina (41:04)
Which I had to look that up because what in the holy hell is that? Yeah, no idea. So basically a GFCI is the thing if you're an electrician, so sorry, I'm gonna oversimplify this. It's a thing that is supposed to detect when electricity is going somewhere that it shouldn't go, like water, for example. And that component was not working. So when the electricity started entering the water, the fail-safe system was broken, basically.
Kathryn (41:07)
Who the fuck knows what that is?
Mm.
Mm.
Gina (41:34)
Ultimately, Black Sunday resulted in seven safety violations for Kings Island and twenty-three thousand dollars in fines, which today would be fifty-six thousand dollars or forty-two thousand pounds, which for an amusement park as profitable as this one is a slap on the wrist, I think it's fair to say that.
days, like I mentioned at the top, Kings Island sees millions and millions of guests each and every year. And unsurprisingly, it does not talk about its dark history much at all.
Every now and then there's a news article that'll come out with like a this day in history angle or like a remembering Black Sunday type headline. But by and large, it's actually private individuals doing the research and compiling the stories and the timelines for these things. So if anyone listening to this grew up going to King's Island or heard about these stories, especially if you have additional information, please send it to iscreamyouscreampod@gmail.com. And that's
All I got for you. I'm so sorry for what I put you through just now.
Kathryn (42:41)
Yeah, that's wild. I like I'm surprised I've never heard of King's Island, but also that conclusion kind of helps me understand why. Because I feel like I would only know of it from those stories. And if they're not like openly and widely shared, I guess it would make sense that I haven't heard of them. I just I don't know. That I'm
Really surprised that it was in Ohio because this all sounds like shit that I should have known. So thank you for sharing. This is wild. It all sounds a little bit fake. Like I believe that it's real, but it's like
So much happened even just in one day? That sounds that's bananas.
Gina (43:22)
It is bananas and it's I like I ca I have been reading about this for a week. I can't wrap my head around any of it. Like that it is so wildly tragic and sad and scary in so many different ways. Yeah, ⁓ so Amusement Park Month is super fun. Really glad we chose this.
Kathryn (43:28)
Yeah.
Yeah, sorry guys.
I have something that might cheer you up.
Gina (43:46)
Ooh, okay, yes
please.
Kathryn (43:48)
scary on top today ⁓ is a little bit exciting because we got it as a response to one of our previous episodes from Hotel Month. I don't remember which one it was, but it was a story that you did as the scary on top. It was that Reddit story.
With that person who worked at the hotel and there was that weird shit going on in the mirror and like very spooky vibes. So we got a message from one of our podcast friends, Mandy, who has a podcast called Thick Thighs and Creepy Vibes. And they're a great podcast. I love them. They're like more in the true crime side of things, but they dabble in like the spooky ghost world every now and then. But if you're into true crime, definitely check them out. They're really, really good. So
Gina (44:08)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Hell yeah.
Kathryn (44:35)
We got a story from her, Anyway, here we go. Hi ladies, my name is Mandy, one of the hosts of a Canadian podcast named Thick Thighs and Creepy Vibes. I love the podcast and have really been enjoying the haunted hotel episodes.
When I listened to your episode on the Fister, ⁓ there we go. She literally knows it better than I than I do. It was the Fister episode. And heard the haunted hotel story. ⁓ I knew I had to reach out. Their haunted experience and hotel's history was eerily similar to one I worked at in twenty not even twenty twenty-five, two thousand five through two thousand eight. I forget how much time has passed.
Gina (44:57)
Thank you, Mandy.
Kathryn (45:19)
I say that like I was there. I literally am not part of this story. I'm just like I worked at a hotel around the same time, a l like a little while after that. So that's where my head's at. Sorry. Anyway, one that I worked at between 2005 and 2008. But since they mentioned an NDA, they were unable to provide the hotel name. I'm here to tell my haunted hotel story because, well, I did not sign any NDAs and I love sharing all things spooky and creepy.
Gina (45:29)
Mm.
Kathryn (45:47)
Hence why I also have a podcast. my story takes place in 2005 within the small historical tourist town of Elora Ontario, Canada. I was finishing my last semester of college for my travel and tourism course, which had me completing a six-week co-op placement at the very popular historic hotel, the Elora Mill Inn. Now, before we dive into my experiences while working at the hotel, I'll give a little background.
Gina (45:47)
⁓ Hell yeah.
Kathryn (46:16)
This hotel sits at the edge of the Elora Gorge and Grand River right downtown. The hotel dates back to 1833 when it was first constructed as a sawmill, which endured a devastating fire and had to be rebuilt. Can I just say this was literally on my list of hotels to cover for Hotel Month? But I just had one, like we literally did Hotel Month because I wanted to talk about the Pfister in Congress, so I already have my two. If we ever did a part two, I would cover this hotel.
Gina (46:35)
Really? Damn. Nice.
Right.
Kathryn (46:46)
It is it's quite yeah, it's quite famously haunted. If I'm thinking of the right one, Elora sounds familiar. I'm like 90% sure this is the one. Anyway. ⁓ yeah. It's my god, that's so true. Okay. it was rebuilt in 1859, it was also used as a whiskey distillery until 1876 before that was shut down. Over the years
Gina (46:54)
ninety percent an A.
Kathryn (47:08)
It was used as both a saw and flour mill. It sat for a long period of time before it was purchased in the 1970s and converted into the historical lavish hotel it is known as today. For some additional context, the hotel is made up of four buildings. The main hotel, which at the time I worked there, had three floors of rooms. Then there was one small house on the property across from the hotel called the James Road House.
The granary building made up of five rooms, kitty corner to the hotel, and the and last the coach house, made up of three rooms to the right of the main hotel. There was a dining room, downstairs lounge and bar, and an event space upstairs, which was located above the front desk space at the time. My shifts were scattered between day afternoon evenings and evening overnight. When I started my front desk shifts, my coworkers would tell me about the strange things that would happen.
while on shift later in the evenings and night shift. Being the spooky girl I am, I loved hearing the stories and at the time thought that was all it was. That was until I started having guests share with me some quote encounters they would have in certain rooms they had been checked into. These were two specific rooms, room 206 and 306, which were on the same side of the hotel. Guests would say they experienced feeling like someone was watching them.
The bed shaking, or like someone was sitting on the bed when no one else was there with them. Other guests would say they had experiences in a room on the fourth floor, room four seven. It was a room that had a loft style bed.
Some guests would experience the same feeling of someone watching them or that they were not alone. Some would say they would see a silhouette of someone in the bathroom mirror. This I know, I know. You and me both. This room was really only rented out when the hotel was at full capacity due to a wedding or corporate event.
Gina (48:59)
No, no. ⁓
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (49:10)
I will say the fourth floor always gave me a weird feeling and it always felt extra cold, especially when I switched to working the full-time night audit shift. During these shifts, I really started to have my own experiences. It started out with my early morning room checks, where I would have to see if any room had requested breakfast for their room. Back then they would fill out a paper and hang it on the door. Like I said, the fourth floor was extra cold and had weird vibe, and I hated getting off on this floor.
Sometimes I would not check, or I would just stick my head down the hall and see if there were any white papers. If no white papers, I went back down to the lobby as fast as I could. That's actually really smart. That's super efficient. Every night I worked during the hours of 3 a.m. to 5 a.m. The lobby elevator would always go from the lobby down to the lounge or travel all the way back up to the fourth floor and back down.
Gina (49:51)
Mm.
Kathryn (50:06)
on its own schedule. Even when there were nights the hotel was completely empty. When I say empty, just me, myself, and I.
Talking with a few of my coworkers, I was told the story of how when it was a mill, a little girl had died in the mill either from falling from one of the floors or from the fire that had taken place in the mill. To be honest, these are stories I have been unable to confirm. During my shifts as a night auditor, I would have to spend time in the dining room and also the lounge, which was located below the dining room.
which I could access from a set of stairs to the right of the dining room. There would be some nights that I would enter the dining room way after all staff had gone home and most guests were the ⁓ in for the night, and it would smell as if the fireplace had just been put out. The fireplace was located in the middle of the dining room and wasn't actually a wood burning fireplace. It was a gas fireplace. Some nights when I would pass through the dining room to across the lounge, I would experience nicely set
tables for the next day on my way down the stairs. But when I came back from my time in the lounge, I would find knives and forks on the floor as if someone had pushed them right off the tables.
I would also experience the drawers where the cutlery was stored being opened even though no one had been there. These drawers were not ones that opened easily or were the quote gentle close style. ⁓ they were old wooden hutches that would get stuck or really squeak when you opened them. So I should have been able to h hear it if someone had opened them.
Some nights I would hear footsteps or the sound of items being dragged on the floor in the hall right above the front desk. Which, like, I have questions about that. What the fuck? That's so terrifying. When I first started to hear these noises, there had been a wedding held. There had been a wedding held in the hall, and I thought that maybe one of the servers was still upstairs cleaning up.
Gina (51:51)
My god.
Kathryn (52:09)
So I decided to go up and give them some help so they could get home since it was late. When I got upstairs and looked around, I realized no one was there. I even went straight to the kitchen to see if maybe I had just missed them, but nope, no one was actually left working but myself. That night I spent mainly hiding in the back office until the morning staff arrived.
night I was in the lounge when a wine glass started sliding off a hanging rack above the bar, ⁓ only to fall in shatter. It hit me with the glass shards. ⁓ I was not alone that night. I had a night cleaner in the same space as me who witnessed what happened. The most unsettling experience I did have during my time at the hotel was one evening during the winter.
It was later in the evening. I would say probably around 11 p.m. The doors to the lobby were those big, heavy, school-style doors where you had to push on the long, chunky handlebar for it to open. would use my Allen key to lock the handles so no one would come in unless they rang the doorbell or knocked. It was for my own safety, especially that late at night and on nights where the hotel would have minimal guests. It was a quiet night.
Maybe only a handful of guests and no one expected for the evening with a late check-in. I was doing work at the front desk when I heard a big knock at the door. It was dark, so I couldn't see who was at the door. I got up, opened it, but didn't see anyone standing there waiting to come in. I looked to the right, no one left, no one. Since there was another door further down to the left of the building, thought maybe they had gone to the door to see if it was open, since
This one was locked. No one was there either. I saw no one anywhere in the parking lot.
really scared me, especially since I was alone with no other staff members.
I noped the fuck right back into the hotel and made sure the front door was locked. That really scared me. I was a scared 20-year-old four-month pregnant woman who decided to call her mom help who lived 15 minutes away instead of the local police station. Thank God I did call my mom because that badass woman drove those 15 minutes at almost midnight and walked around the whole area wielding a baseball bat to make sure I was safe.
Gina (54:25)
Haw.
Kathryn (54:27)
I love it. Yes.
Gina (54:27)
Hell yeah, Mom energy.
Kathryn (54:30)
She also did not find anything or anyone. But what she did was sit with me until my shift ended at 7 a.m. To this day, we still talk about this and how that was one of the scariest things I experienced working at the hotel. Was it a ghost? Was it someone looking for a place to stay? Or was it someone up to no good? That I will never know. But what I do know is that compared to that night,
All of the other experiences I encountered, I eventually got used to, and they became things I kind of look forward to when I went into work. Thanks for reading my story, and I hope you enjoyed some Canadian hotel haunts. If you ever want to visit Ontario, make a stop in the quaint town of Elora and visit, or stay at the Elora Mill Inn. It has since been extensively renovated since 2005, and it has an amazing spa with heated pool and hot tub.
If you do visit, visit in October. Local artists create giant paper mache creatures that get displayed throughout the town, and there is a local haunted house you can visit. Plus, everything is better in the fall. my gosh, I love this. Yes. I know.
Gina (55:27)
What?
I'm so into that. Fuck yeah. That's terrifying.
Kathryn (55:37)
And it says creep it real, ladies.
Gina (55:40)
Ooh, creep it real.
Kathryn (55:40)
That's it. Isn't
that wild? That's a lot of different experiences.
Gina (55:44)
So ma and the one th it's probably one of the smallest ones, but the one that's sticking in my mind is the drawers. Because we have drawers like that that you you ca you cannot open them without going to battle. And even when you do, it's loud as hell. And if I just walked downstairs and they were open and I didn't hear it, that would be absolutely terrifying. Also love that she called her mom. I feel like that's something both of our moms would do.
Kathryn (55:52)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that would be nerve wracking.
We would definitely call our moms because they would do I don't know if my mom would wander around with a baseball bat. I do think that she would assume it was a ghost. in the way that so would I, but she would definitely come and sit with me. Yeah.
Gina (56:23)
Yeah, I've
my my mom's a baseball bat mom.
Kathryn (56:26)
Yeah.
Gina (56:27)
There's two types of women, ghost women and baseball bat women. Yeah, we're a baseball bat family.
Kathryn (56:27)
Yeah. Ghost swimming and baseball. We're ba we're ⁓ ghost swimming over here in in my family.
Either
way, Alma's would sit with us until ⁓ shift end. I'm thinking of the drawers because one thing about me, I used to be afraid of like a randomly open drawer. But something I've learned about myself since moving into this house is I don't always close cupboards and drawers all the way. And so they like open back up. Cause I'll just kind of shove them, you know, and just assume they are going to close all the way.
Gina (56:59)
No.
Okay.
⁓ yeah.
Kathryn (57:09)
But the ones that I have here in this house do not. So there have been many times where I'll come downstairs and be like and then it's like, wait, no, that was probably me. I was just in there. Yes.
Gina (57:20)
Because I've had a similar experience, but completely different. Because my it's not that I was afraid of them, it's that they it was like a pet peeve of mine. Like I would visceral rage if I saw like a drawer or a cabinet that was only a little bit open. And then when we moved into this flat, just the cabinets and the drawers, they weren't installed properly. And so a lot of them physically cannot close all the way. And even if even if you do, like for example, close a cabinet, it'll still swing back open like half an inch or whatever.
Kathryn (57:24)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Gina (57:49)
And so I've had to get over that rage. And you've had to accept your fear. And that's beautiful.
Kathryn (57:58)
Cool.
Gina (57:59)
Join us next
time.
Kathryn (58:03)
Yeah, so if you have any spooky hotel stories or spooky stories about any other topic, feel free to send them in ice creamus screenpod at gmail dot com. And don't forget to join us on Patreon and leave us a rating wherever you listen. And until next time, Lil Spoons, keep it cool.
Gina (58:23)
Keep it creepy.
