Does the specter of James Dean's car haunt the site of his tragic death?

If you have ever taken Highway 41 headed towards the coast there’s a good chance you've driven by where Highway 41 becomes Highway 46 and the infamous spot  where James Dean lost his life in a tragic automobile accident in 1955.

On the night of September 30, 1955 Dean was driving along then U.S. Route 466 towards Salinas in his Porsche 550 Spyder nicknamed "Lil Bastard". At a little bit after 5:00 pm, a 2950 Ford Tuder was trying to turn away from an intersection and was in the center of the road. Dean was unable to stop at the time and slammed into the driver side of the Ford and skidded across the road onto the side of the highway. The Ford driver was relatively uninjured. Dean's mechanic, who had been in the passenger seat, was ejected from the car and suffered major injuries and survived. Dean wasn't as lucky and suffered a broken neck and died at the scene.

Although Dean passed onto legend peacefully, Lil Bastard has a bit of a sinister legend of it's own. The car was supposedly cursed and George Barris bought the wrecked vehicle for parts. When the car arrived at his garage it fell off the trailer and broke his mechanic's leg.

Soon after that the engine and transmission were sold to some doctors who wanted to used the parts in their own race cars. In their first race, one car spun out of control and hit a tree killing the driver. The other car rolled taking a turn, yet this driver was lucky (relatively speaking) and was only severely injured.

Most of what I just said is common knowledge regarding Dean's death and the car. But the other day I came across a story of Lil Bastard sometimes still being seen on Hwy 46 where that tragic accident occurred. Could Dean be damned for all eternity to drive this stretch of road? Most likely not. If the car is indeed seen, it's most likely a residual haunting where something so tragic happens and imprints itself onto the surrounding area. That and countless James Dean fans have journeyed to the site to pay their respects, no doubt adding to the energy that's already there.

Next time you are heading towards the coast, stop at the memorial if you can. There's even a small restaurant called Jack Ranch cafe has good food and even some Dean memorabilia. And if you are driving along the road and see a Porsche Spyder in your rear view mirror, make sure to let them pass. And then take a photo for me please.

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?

The Legend of Snake Road

Located in eastern Fresno County is the small farming community of Sanger. South of this small town is a street called Channel Road. Due to it's windy nature it has been nicknamed "Snake Road".

Legend has it that one night a woman was driving down Snake Road with her two young daughters, when she took one of the many curves of the road too fast and drove off the road and wound up crashing her car into the nearby Kings River. Unfortunately she was unable to unbuckle her seat belt and drowned at the site of the accident. Her children were able get free of the car, but the drowned a mile downstream. There have been reports of a woman crying and dressed in white walking down the windy road calling out to her lost children and if anyone approaches her she asks them if they have seen her children.

I had first heard of this story back in 2000, so one night several friends and I went to investigate the road for ourselves. Upon arriving at the road, we found it's nickname held true as the road was curved so much that the fastest we could go at a safe speed was 25 mph. We drove the road twice, hoping we would get lucky and actually see the woman, but we didn't see anything. Not sure what to do next, we decided to investigate a wooded part of the road at one of the curves hoping this could have been the location of the accident.

We entered the wooded area armed with flashlights, cameras, a camcorder, and an EMF detector. For those who don't know an EMF meter detects changes in the electromagnetic field. There is a theory that ghosts can effect this field in some manner and the detector can show this. We were about twenty feet from the road, completely surrounded by trees when we started hearing footsteps behind us. They would follow us as we were walking but stop when we did. We called out to see if anyone was there, but got no answer. We continued to walk and the footsteps would continue. At this point we saw a strange light flashing in the distance and the EMF meter went off, signaling something was disrupting the magnetic field. We started snapping pictures, but all we got were the typical dust orbs.

At this point we weren't sure who or what was following us. We had come across a sign that said "Y2K Trail" with an arrow pointing towards an opening. So we weren't sure if it was some survivalist nut following us or the lady in white. We felt it was best we get out of there and proceeded to go back to our car. And to cap off a strange night, right at that moment a car sped by us at a fast pace and nearly drove off the road. Needless to say we got the hell out of there.

For several years I believed the story of Snake Road. That was until I came across a piece of Mexican folklore about a lady in white, or La Llorana. The story of her is similar to the one I heard about Snake Road. But this time the woman drowns her children and then distraught drowns herself. She can be seen walking the area where she drowned her children, crying and searching for her children. If anyone approaches the woman she proceeds to drown them as well.

Apparently this story is common throughout the southwest of America and even the Fresno area has another story similar to the Snake Road one. This time it's located on the San Joaquin River on the near the bridge for Hwy. 99. So now we have the same ghost haunting two locations. From what I read about La Llorona is that people would tell the story to prevent their children from going near bodies of water, presumably to keep them from entering the water and drowning.

But what was the strange light I saw that night? And what about the footsteps that were following us? Was it nothing more than some survivalist following us? Or was this story of the lady in white actually true? I may never know.