Just outside Crown Point, a small cemetery sits nestled in a wooded area along the back roads of the surrounding area. Its
official name is Southeast Grove Cemetery but to most it is infamously known
as the Gypsy Cemetery. A Local legend about the cemetery began in the mid 1800's
when a group of traveling gypsies made camp outside of Crown Point. Soon
after an epidemic broke out. The locals promptly blamed the newcomers and
shunned them to the extent of with holding essentials such as food and medicine.
As tends to happen when people start dying,
tempers flared as those losing their families became enraged and looked for someone to blame. A group of local men formed and confronted the gypsies telling them they all had to leave immediately. The gypsies pleaded with the men saying that many of them were sick as well. If they could just give them some food and medicine as soon as they were well they would move on. Their request was denied and they were told to leave now or suffer the consequences. The local men left only to return a few days later to make sure their threat had been listened to. When they arrived at the camp all of the gypsies and their belongings were gone. Where their camp had been were now just multiple mounds where they had buried their dead. The gypsies had gone but left behind a curse on the area and the townspeople that had denied them. The legend says the townsmen that confronted the gypsies returned home that evening to find the hems of their pants covered in blood, marked by the gypsies curse!
Over the years the cemetery has become well known for being one of the most haunted
spots in Indiana. Many paranormal enthusiasts and ghost hunters flock to the
area to investigate. Multiple stories of anomalies and strange goings on have reported.
One urban legend says that if you walk through the cemetery and notice blood on your clothing then you are a descendant of the original towns folk and will be chased out
of the cemetery by glowing lights. Another says the original gypsy campsite was on land
just outside the cemetery and if you go back there at night you can see ghostly figures,
smell a campfire and even hear music.
One local and her friends decided to visit the gypsy cemetery at night. Her tale of the
visit in the early 2000's scared her enough to never return to the cemetery again:
"As we walked through the old creaky gate, I kid you not, there was this strange fog that
started to grow thick. It was really weird. In the center of the graveyard there is an angel
statue, as we got close to her, all three of us froze. I can’t tell you why, we just stopped. I
started to get this awful feeling and couldn’t get out of there fast enough. We turned as
some sort of unit and practically ran out of there. Mind you, we hadn’t seen anything, only
had a weird feeling. Right as we got out of the gate, I turned around and froze. My friends
did the same. There appeared to be a weird shape GLIDING through the cemetery about twenty
feet away. At one point its head snapped in our direction and then turned forward again to
continue its glide. That was enough for me and I practically dove into the backseat of my
friends car as she and our other friend hopped in. She floored it out of the area and a few
minutes later we arrived at a restaurant and slid into the closest booth. We still had not said
a word to one another and honestly I’m not sure how long it was before we actually spoke. All
three of us were pale and clearly terrified. Finally, one of my friends broke the silence by telling
each of us to whisper to him what we saw. I whispered first and then my other friend. He then
confirmed that we each saw the exact same thing. Eventually we left the restaurant to head home for the night, still basically silent."
Ten years ago in 2012, nine local teenagers made the drive to cemetery once again at night to see what would happen. They definitely got what they were looking for:
"What's that, back there?" we heard Toni ask from a few yards ahead of us. She was leaning
over the edge of the fence that designated the end of the cemetery.
"Looks like a bonfire," Jack said, looking over her shoulder.
"Who would light a fire in the woods? Haven't they learned anything from Smokey the Bear?"
joked Ducky as she and Peter caught up with Toni and Jack.
"There is a portion of fence that that has been bent down. Should be easy to climb over. Lets check it out," said Nick, using the zoom lens on his camera to survey the area.
I clung even more tightly to John. "I am not comfortable with this," I whispered to him.
"Do you want to go back to the car? We don't have to go in if you don't want to." he assured me.
"No, but I am not going over that fence," I replied with steely resolve.
Raven, who was a self proclaimed Wiccan and typically wasn't spooked by things of this nature,
even shot me an uneasy look. Jimmy, who always acted like he had something to prove, was the
first to jump the low fence. Toni, Jack, Ducky, Nick and Peter followed. Raven came over to me
and took me by the arm. Three of us stood there, arms locked together, at the short fence looking
deep into the woods at the faint fire light in the distance as the shadows of our friends approached it in the dark. As their shadows grew fainter, I could swear I heard music on the wind. A soft violin melody. It wasn't a playful tune, but a slow, melancholy piece that reminded me of a funeral dirge. I looked at Raven, and she wordlessly expressed that she, too, could hear the music. Just then, we heard a loud scream from beyond the treeline.
I could feel John's muscles tensing, wanting to jump the fence and find out what was the matter, but staying as protection for Raven and myself.
"What the hell is going on out there?" he yelled into the trees. Laughter was his reply. Ducky thought it would be funny to punk everyone out with her best horror film shriek. I didn't think it was very funny.
The minutes started to drag on. Ducky's scream was the last thing we had heard of our friends in awhile... at least 10 minutes, and we started to get anxious. We called out to them, but only heard the melancholy music in response. John decided that he should check on them and jumped the fence, leaving Raven and I alone in the empty cemetery. Just then, the music stopped. The music stopped and the screaming began. Raven and I grabbed each
other in a tight embrace. It wasn't Ducky's best horror film shriek, but the combined bellowing of all of our friends. We could hear a crashing though the woods, and we prayed it was that of our friends returning to us. Raven gripped the pentagram she wore around her neck tightly, as I started reciting The Lord's Prayer in a whispered voice. Raven asked me why I was tugging on the hood of her sweatshirt. I wasn't. I turned to look at what might have snagged the jacket, and that's when I saw it. There is something innate in the human psyche that knows when something has gone terribly wrong. Your stomach feels like it has fallen to the floor,
and the oxygen is stolen from your lungs. The buzzing in your ears that accompanies the tunnel vision that precedes unconsciousness drowns out all other noises. Perhaps this is the brain's way of sheltering itself, protecting the fragile psyche from fracturing under the pressure of trying to comprehend the incomprehensible. I wish I had just passed out, instead of remaining conscious to see the grotesque vision before me. Pulling on the hood of Raven's jacket was a bony and desiccated hand. The hand was attached to a man had a swarthy quality, though still impossibly pale. He wore a patched wool coat and flat cap. His cheeks and eyes were sunken, and his breath was coming out as a raspy rattle. Deep in the hollows of his eyes, a fire burned. His eyes spoke of a rage and hate I had never experienced. I wanted to pass out, to stop
seeing those hate-filled eyes boring into my own, reaching into my very soul. Instead, I screamed.
The spectre vanished at the sound, and Raven caught me as my knees went weak and I started falling to the wet grass. It wasn't long before John and the others were clamoring back over the fence. Everyone was ready to get the hell out of this place. I wasn't feeling steady on my feet, so John swept me up in his arms, threw me over his shoulder and fireman carried me back to the SUV.
The vivaciousness of the group that had driven out this way not even an hour before was all gone. You could hear a pin drop. We didn't even want to listen to anything on the radio... as if we were afraid to hear the melancholy dirge through the SUV's speakers.
We parted ways that night, never fully understanding what we had experienced. Nick was the only one who seemed happy about the whole excursion. He had gotten quite a few good shots of what looked like orbs surrounding an unearthly mist. Ducky got a sprained ankle, and the rest of us got plenty of nightmare fodder for the rest of our lives. We never really talked about that night afterwards, at least not with any amount of seriousness. We all laughed it off, and made excuses about sleep deprivation and mass hysteria. Since then, a lot of us have lost touch. I'd like to think that it was the natural progression of human interactions that tore apart a once tight-knit group of friends. As high school passes and your once abundant free time is filled with work, and relationships, and adult responsibilities; the ones you gave that free time to begin to slip away. I don't believe that is what happened, though. I think what drove a wedge through The Society was our inability to come to terms with what we had experienced.
Nearly ten years has passed since that night. John and I are now happily married. Raven and Peter are still our closest friends. Everyone else has fallen to the way side. Though sometimes it takes a few glasses of wine to loosen our tongues, John, Peter, Raven and I have spoken candidly about the events of that night. Peter told us that he and the others followed the campfire deeply into the woods while the John, Raven and I stayed behind. They were entranced by the quiet music, and followed it to the campsite. When they reached the source of the glow, they could see what looked like people huddled to the fire. Their faces were sunken, and they had an air of death about them. One swarthy man in a wool coat and flat cap was playing the violin, and no one seemed to notice the presence of the six teenagers sneaking up around them. Peter motioned for them all to head back, when Nick started snapping photos. The flash caught the attention of the huddled mass, and that's when our friends started to scream. The violinist stopped playing, and everyone turned to face our group of friends. Their eyes, he said, burned with hatred. At that point Peter, Ducky, Jack, Toni, Jimmy and Nick all started running for their lives. John caught them as they were making their way back to the fence and they heard my cries.
What has never been discussed, though, when talking about the decline of The Society, was the blood. When we got back to Raven's garage that night, going our separate ways, I made sure to look at everyone's feet. The only shoes and hemlines not streaked with red were that of John, Peter, Raven, and myself."
This young lady never returned to the cemetery either! I visited the gypsy cemetery in August of
2014. It was daytime and very foggy. I took the photos posted here that day and it was very peaceful but did have some what of a strange vibe! The photos I took showed nothing unusual and I saw nothing unusual to tell of. A google search of gypsy cemetery will pull up a plethora of articles and videos on the site if you would like to hear more!!
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