Sally Townsend's Ghost

During the Revolutionary War, Americans were either Patriots—those who wanted independence from Great Britain, or Loyalists those who remained loyal to King George and wanted to stay an English Colony. 

Samuel Townsend was a Patriot and one of his older sons Robert was a participant in a Patriot intelligence group called the Culper Spy Ring.

Most of the Americans who lived in Oyster Bay were Loyalists, so the Townsends were in the minority. 

After the Patriot’s defeat at the Battle of Long Island, to add insult to injury, Samuel Townsend was forced to quarter in his home two of his enemies Lieutenant Colonel John Graves Simcoe and Major Andre both British officers who commanded an elite unit of American Loyalists called the Queen’s Rangers. 

Samuel Townsend told his children to treat the officers with respect. One of Samuel’s daughters Sally Townsend enjoyed the company of these two British soldiers and despite her father’s protests she continued to associate with them. She eventually fell in love with John Graves Simcoe and he returned her affection. 

Raynham Hall is a museum today, it contains what is considered the oldest Valentine preserved in American History. John gave this valentine, dated February 14, 1779, to Sally.

During this time the Culper Spy Ring was supplying needed information about British plans and troop movements to George Washington. Simcoe, in turn, was using Raynham Hall as a drop off location for British intelligence

Sally reading one evening in the Hall’s living room stayed hidden while one of these notes was placed in a container in the room. She read the note—it confirmed intelligence that Major Andre had been working on--Benedict Arnold, the commander of West Point, would accept a bribe to betray the Patriots by offering to surrender the fort and his troops to the British.

Sally, knowing this information would harm her country was torn between her feelings of love for Simcoe and her loyalty for America. She knew she must betray one or the other. Finally, heartbroken she informed her father of this plot.

This information was passed on to Benjamin Tallmadge, who had organized the Culper Spy Ring. Major Andre was found, on him, he held the plans for the fortification of West Point that Arnold, following through with his betrayal, had given him.

Self-portrait Major Andre drew night before he was executed. He was hanged for a spy since he was caught out of uniform. Andre was well liked by all, so his death was mourned. Sally’s brother Robert regretted it deeply.

On a monument the Americans erected to Andre’s memory there is a quote from George Washington. “He was more unfortunate than criminal an accomplished man and a gallant soldier.”

The choice Sally made allowed West Point to be saved from British control. This helped the Patriots win the war. Unfortunately, there was no happy ending for Sally Townsend. 

Townsend house today.

Sally was never able to forgive herself for betraying, John, the only love of her life. 

Today there is a female ghost that haunts Raynham Hall--Sally Townsend. Her bedroom, known as the west room, is always colder than the rest of the house. 

Tour guides mention they have to wear a sweater when they are in her bedroom. Many people avoid the room altogether stating they always feel someone is behind them.

Others Report they feel conflicted emotions upon entering the room.

Sally Townsend is a true unsung hero of the American Revolution because she chose her country over her love.

Sally Townsend

Andrew Pixley: Takes Longer to Kill Evil

On an August night in 1964 Andrew Armandoz Benavidez, aka Andrew Pixley, brutally killed two young girls in a hotel in Jackson, Wyoming. His crime is considered the worst ever committed in the state. 

He was the youngest prisoner, 22 years old to be executed in the Wyoming gas chamber. 

It takes the average condemned prisoner three minutes to die after the pellets hit the acid; Pixley lived twice as long, it took him six minutes to die. 

The Wyoming Frontier Prison or Wyoming State Penitentiary is considered to be very haunted. Pixley’s ghost is just one spirit that haunts this former prison. Tragically, it appears his two young victims also haunt the building.

Pixley born in Las Cruces, NM was a misfit. He dropped out of high school and never held a job. He served two years in the U.S. Army after a warrant for his arrest for passing bad checks was issued. 

After his short stint in the army, he mostly worked as an itinerate dishwasher in the Pacific Northwest. Just two weeks before the murders he was arrested for possession of a stolen car--he was cleared of these charges.

Judge Robert McAuliffe’s family from Illinois were vacationing in Jackson on the night of August 5/6, when he and his wife Betty left their daughters in their second-floor motel room to watch a show put on by the resort. 

Pixley broke into the hotel by climbing a stack of firewood in the back and breaking a screen out of a window. When the couple returned they found Pixley lying in a drunken daze on the floor. Mr. McAuliffe grabbed and pinned him down. His wife found two of their three daughters dead in their beds.

The girls Debbie 12 and Cindy 8, had been sexually assaulted. Debbie was bludgeoned with a rock, and Cindy was beaten and had been strangled. Their youngest child Susan 6 was unharmed but she witnessed the assault of her two sisters. 

Some sources also state that Pixley cannibalized the two young girls as well. 

When arrested he told police despite being covered in blood, “ I didn’t do it.” An angry mob outside the motel called for him to be lynched, so he was taken to Wyoming State Penitentiary in Rawlings, Wyoming where he could be held securely.  
Up to his execution, he claimed that he didn’t remember anything.

At his trial, Dr. William Karn Jr. who had examined Pixley stated he was sane but an “incurable sociopath”. 

When he mentioned “that it meant a lot more to Pixley to kill the girls while they were awake” Robert McAuliffe flew at Pixley at which point he was restrained. 

Pixley laughed after the judge announced he was to be executed on December 10, 1965. This judge did not allow an appeal to be filed to commute his sentence to “life imprisonment”. 

The McAuliffe’s divorced, and the father remarried and had a son. Both parents have passed. Susan their youngest child is married and has five children.

The Wyoming Frontier Prison closed down in 1981. Today it is run as a museum. 

Many paranormal investigations have been conducted in this former prison. Before Pixley was executed he was considered a very violent prisoner. Today many have picked up his very "angry energy". 

One lit candle that sits under his photo in his former cell never flickers but when tour guides mention him the ones around it do. Some wonder if his ghost is trapped in his former cell. EVP's have been recorded in this cell and in and around the gas chamber.

One female sensitive, who joined an investigation sat on the gas chamber chair. She asked the spirits she sensed if they knew how they died. She didn’t hear a response, but later in a recording, she was disturbed to hear the voice of a young female child wail and reply to her question, “no”. 

Other witnesses have heard the sounds of young girls crying coming from this gas chamber. 

Another spirit that is seen is that of a ghost cat. This black cat was executed in the gas chamber as a “test run” to make sure the chamber had no leaks before Pixley’s sentence was carried out.

The following video has interviews with several people who work at the museum who have encountered both the cat and Pixley’s ghosts.

Anne Naylor’s Ghost

This is a true story about two grisly murders, one resulted in a haunting that still occurs today. 

Children at London Workhouse
18th Century

The Naylor sisters, two orphans were residents or inmates * at a workhouse in 18^th century London. It was common practice at this time for children once they reached the age of 12 to be apprenticed out to a local business. 

Anne Naylor, ** and her younger sister were given into the care of a local woman who ran a millinery shop. A Mrs. Sarah Metyard and her daughter Sarah “Sally” Metyard ran this establishment. These two women had five young girls apprenticed to them, but what they provided would not be characterized as “care.”

The girls under the Metyard’s care were often beaten and starved. Both women had hot tempers and enjoyed inflicting pain. Anne unfortunately, was often their primary target for she was sickly and could not keep up with her assigned work. 

At one point Anne managed to escape the Metyard’s house, but they sent a boy, who found her and forcefully returned her to their shop. As punishment Sally beat Anne and then locked her in the attic where she was given only bread and water.

Anne now desperate once more escaped the Metyard’s home. This time Sally brought her back. She viciously beat Anne with a broomstick, and then Mrs. Metyard tied Anne to the Attic door where she was forced to stand for hours during the day. 

She was tied to this door for three days without food or water. Mrs. Metyard pointed her out to the other apprentices warning them that this would happen to them if they ever tried to escape, or disobey her.

On the fourth day, the other apprentices noticed Anne was not moving. They called for Sally. She beat Anne about the head with a shoe, but when she didn’t respond, she called for her mother. Mrs. Metyard tried to revive Anne with smelling salts, but when this didn’t work, the two women realized Anne was dead. 

They locked her body in a trunk in the attic. They made a show of taking food to her for days so the other apprentices would not suspect anything was amiss. They even left the attic door open and the shop door ajar, claiming Anne had run away yet again.

However, Anne’s sister did not believe them. She managed to tell a lodger in the house that she suspected Anne was dead. Furious, the Metyards murdered her as well. ** 

After two months had passed, the two women started to worry the neighbors would wonder about the smell for Anne’s body was still in the trunk in the attic. 

On Christmas day they dismembered the body and wrapped each piece in cloth. At first, they tried to burn these pieces in their fireplace but realizing this caused an odor—they instead took the fragments to Chick Lane and dumped them in a mud puddle near a sewer.

When these human remains were found, it was assumed that it was a body that had been snatched and then dissected by medical students. 

Soon after, witnesses started to see the ghost of a young girl dressed in white in the area where the body had been dumped. 

Other witnesses heard a young girl’s scream. So many people saw and have listened to this apparition that eventually most of this London parish felt Chick Lane was haunted.

The Metyards might have gotten away with this murder if it had not been for Sally confessing. Four years after they disposed of Anne’s body, the two women had a big fight, which prompted Sally to move out and live with a man who was her lover. 

When he mentioned the ghost of Chick Lane, Sally told him what she and her mother had done. Naively, he informed the authorities—downplaying Sally’s role in the belief she would not be accused.

But both the Metyard women were arrested, tried, and found guilty. The judge, when sentencing both women to hang, announced that justice would not be complete unless both their bodies were dissected after death. 

When Mrs. Metyard was walked to the scaffold, she collapsed. Her jailers were not able to revive her, so she was hanged while still unconscious. Sally cried as she took this final walk. Both bodies were put on public display after they were hanged, at Tyburn on July 19, 1768. Their bodies were then dissected at “Surgeon’s Hall.”

Here is a link to the official record.

Farringdon Station

Chick Lane is now called West Street. Many of the 18th-century buildings in this area have been torn down—new ones have replaced them. Despite these changes, the neighborhood is still haunted. 

One hundred years after Anne’s death, in 1758, a prominent London ghost hunter investigated—he experienced the same activity everyone else had—so the site was pronounced authentic. 

Today, near the area where Anne’s body was dumped, stands the Farringdon Station—a stop on the London Underground. Countless witnesses have heard Anne’s screams as they stand on the platform, after the last train leaves. Several people have caught these screams on their recorders.

* People who lived in workhouses were called inmates—this is fitting because these Poor Law institutions were similar to prisons. This is probably why we call prisoners inmates today.

** Anne Naylor was 13 years old when she was beaten and starved to death.

*** It is not known how the Metyard’s killed Anne’s sister or what they did with her body.