Does the ghost of a murdered girl haunt an oak tree near Sanger?

A reader shared this with me last week about a weird encounter that happened to his cousin outside of Sanger late one night. This is what he sent me:

"Alright so here's a true story that happened to my cousin. He's about 14 years older than me, I'm 35. This happened to him in the early 90's. He was going to college and was working graveyard part time at one of those convenient gas stations that's open 24 hours. He lives in Parlier but he used to work that job in Sanger. This happened one night in the winter. He got off around 1 in the morning and he would take Newmark to get from Sanger to Parlier. He was driving and it was foggy so he was going slow. He was going down Newmark when he sees what looks like a young girl walking down the side of the road. My cousin is genuinely a good guy, a good Samaritan type. He pulls over and lowers the window and asks "hey did you need a ride" the girl keeps walking and doesn't even turn around. He tries one last time, and he asks again "are you okay, do you need a ride." He said he turned the light on in his car for whatever reason, but after he asked that 2nd time, she poked her head in the car and repeated verbatim what he asked her. He said she had the ugliest face ever, like someone over did it or got crazy with black make up. After she spoke she started laughing and he said that laugh sent shivers down his spine. He freaked out and sped off. He said after that he NEVER took Newmark to get home when he was getting off late." 

Creepy story to say the least and it reminds me of the stories I've heard that happened on Channel Road. Talking to the person some more they told me of a local Sanger story of a young girl that was supposedly raped and killed by an oak tree on Newmark and Central and haunts the road where she was killed. He thinks this is what his cousin saw driving on Newmark late that one night.

The oak tree in question. Just south of Newmark and Central.

Looking at a map I saw this was very close to Snake Road. I'm still researching this story, but if it's true could this be the actual origin for the Snake Road ghost? Granted they are very different stories, but is it more than just coincidence that two haunts are near each other? I've already been on record saying that I think the Snake Road story is nothing more than a retelling of La Llorona. But I've witnessed weird things on that road and know others who have as well. Could the things I and others have witnessed actually be this poor woman haunting the area and people used her story to spin a cautionary tale for Snake Road? Or is Sanger cursed with two ghosts that both share tragic, but different tales?

Weird Fresno wants to hear your ghost stories!

So I want to share some ghost stories for Halloween, but not mine. It seems everyone has a ghost story or knows someone who has. And I want to hear them, but don't e-mail me. I want to hear the story in your own words and the emotions that came with your story.

So here's what I want to do. Whoever wants to share their story, call the Weird Fresno hotline at (559) 481-1057. From now until October 30 I will take any call and will compile all the stories together (I can download them as a .mp3 file) and upload it to YouTube and on Halloween post it and share it with everyone.

Can't wait to hear what you guys have to share.

Weird Fresno teams up with Ghost Tripping for video series.

A few weeks ago I had mentioned both on Facebook and my Twitter feed that I was working on a new project but couldn't really go into detail. I'm glad to say that I can now reveal exactly what I was working on.

I was contacted by a local film production company by the name of Ghost Tripping who was interested in documenting on film local haunts around the valley. They wanted me to act as their expert on the story and would film me before venturing to the location itself to film and tell the story as well as recreate what is said to have happened.

For our first endeavor they wanted to tackle the ever familiar Channel Road. Having recently just gone there I had some new stories that I wanted to share. Met up with them for an hour or so and they filmed me talking about Channel Road. They told me they were then going to film the rest later and would let me know when it was ready.

Received an e-mail earlier this week saying that they were done filming and had a trailer to tease what the final project would be.

The finished product should be done sometime in early March and I will post it then. I'm looking forward to my partnership with Ghost Trippers as finally the local legends can be filmed as they should.

How legends get started

Disclaimer: Please do not enter any of the locations mentioned in this article without permission from the owners. These places and those like them are considered private property and entering them without the owner's permission is trespassing. You will be arrested for this and will make it harder for serious investigators to do their job.

Is this old abandoned house haunted? Given it's

appearance it has to be right?

See this house? Would you believe me if I told you it's haunted? Why wouldn't you, look how creepy it is. And it's abandoned so it has to be haunted right? Wrong.

The house in the photo is th Craycroft house on Palm Avenue, just south of Herndon. It was built in 1927 by a Frank J. Craycroft who invented a brick that had great insulationg properties that were perfect for the summers and winters here and decided to build his home from this material. Unfortunately tragedy struck two years later when a disgruntled brick mason shot Craycroft who then died from his injuries several months later. This part is known to be true as the story was retold in Valley's Legends and Legacies Vol. III.

Given the story of the death and the appearance of the house (fenced off and in a state of decay) it's easy for an urban legend to take seed and grow. People passing by the house and not knowing the history of it might assume it's haunted. They then mention it to someone else and that person may say they heard it was haunted from someone else. These are how urban legends get started. Same with Kearney Mansion. People assume since it's an old historic building that it HAS to be haunted. And somehow a story like the one where anyone who sees the ghost of Mrs. Kearny dies gets started and is perpuated through the years. Hell even I've been guilty of believing this. When I was in high school I was told there was this cemetery out in the country in Madera that the church had been burned to the ground by satanist and they performed ceromies in the now abandoned cemetery. Of course I believed this as a friend of a friend who in turn had heard it from someone else. Of course none of this was true, but given the nature of the cemetery and the stories I was told it was easy to believe it was.

My point in all this is don't always believe what your told. But that doesn't mean the story still shouldn't be told. Urban legends are just part of our area's folklore. And that's what I've been doing with Weird Fresno lately, telling the folklore stories and urban legends of the area. I'm not trying to prove anything (I'm not that arrogant to think I can where others haven't). I used to love the story but got so caught up in being an investigator and in trying to prove ghosts exist that I forgot what orginally interested me in the paranormal. It was the stories.

So next time you hear a place is haunted or a monster was seen in those trees behind the park or that a UFO laned in a pasture and killed a few cows, don't automatically assume it's true. Just take the story with a grain of salt and look into the story to see if the claims can be verified. And of course pass it on to me so I can add it to the ever growing list of stories in Fresno.