The
following is a first hand account of something I experienced in 1970. I was twelve years
old and living with one older sister and our mother on 6th street in East Los Angeles. My
mother worked in the evenings at the bus depot in downtown Los Angeles, and was usually
gone by the time I arrived home from school. It was after school on a Tuesday afternoon
that this incident occurred. My mother had already gone to work, and my sister was
not yet
at home. I had just arrived and was alone in the house. I went into the kitchen to make
myself something to eat, and while I was busy removing a
few items from our refrigerator
I heard footsteps in our living room.
The
house we lived in was small and the kitchen and living room are next to each other. Since
I had just arrived, I had not turned on either a radio or the TV so the sound of the
footsteps were very clear. I remember looking
out from the kitchen and what I saw was a
man in our living room walking away from me. He was tall, with short black hair. He wore a
long sleeve white dress shirt, and black slacks with black dress shoes which were very
distinct on the wood floor.
The
front door of the house enters into a long hallway, which two bedrooms are attached. The
hallway leads into the living room and then the kitchen. What I remember as truly
being odd, is that I had just walked through the living room, and there was no one there.
The front door and the kitchen are the only ways in or out. The other odd thing is that
whoever this man was, he showed no fear or concern that I was there. I never saw his face
because he never turned around. He never even looked side to side. I watched him as
he made his way into the long hallway, afraid he would
turn around, or notice that I was
there and had seen him. Then he was halfway down the hall, and I started to enter the
living room never taking my eyes off of him. He then reached out and opened the front
door, and I walked
fast behind him because I
wanted to see where he would go. I reached the front door maybe four seconds after he shut
the door behind him. The front of the house had a narrow porch and several steps which led
down to the sidewalk.
As
I opened the door I had expected to see him turn around, and I was ready to shut and lock
it, but as I looked out, he was nowhere to be seen. I then stepped out on the front steps
of the house and looked around for him, but he was gone. Across the street was a school
friend coming over to my house. I asked him if he saw a man come out of our house and he
told me he didn't see anything or anyone. I knew this was impossible because he was
just there. I later told my
sister who came home soon after, and later that evening we
told our mother. I didn't think it was a burglar, not dressed in a neatly pressed shirt
and slacks. And why did he just casually walk out of our house?
A
few days later, our next door neighbor called me and my sister over. Her name was Bertha,
and she was in her sixties. She was a nice elderly lady
who had lived in the neighborhood
for many years. What she told me I never forgot, but how accurate it is I don't know. She
said that many years before, when she was still in her thirties, there
was a couple who
lived in our house. She went on to say that one morning, the wife took a gun and shot her
husband dead in the kitchen. He had a bank job, and would always wear a suit and tie to
work. Bertha also said that she knew all this because one of the reasons for the wife
killing her husband was because she was certain that her husband and Bertha were having an
affair. She told us that she was sure it was him, and that the wife was still in prison
for his murder.
I
first moved into this house when I was about seven years old. We moved away when I was
fourteen. Although several other family members, including my older sister and my mother,
told of strange occurrences in the house, that was the one and only time that this figure
appeared to me. To this day I don't know why he decided to appear that day. There were
stories of money he supposedly had hidden somewhere in the house, and I remember my mother
having a psychic come in to verify that there was something hidden somewhere. And that my
mother had taken a whole day to search every inch of
the attic and under the house as
well. Nothing was ever found.
I
still remember the address and the layout of the house. I now live 20 miles from this
house, and every few years, while in the neighborhood, I will drive by and just look at
the house. I sometimes think about asking
the current occupants if they have ever seen
anything strange, but I never do.
I have even thought of doing research on criminal
investigations at this address, but have yet to do so.
My
recollections of this day are true and as accurate as I remember them. As for the murder,
I don't know how actual this is. Did I see a ghost that
day, a ghost of a murder victim
from the 1940's? I may well have to research
this for my own personal reasons. As for the
so called money, I don't think
there ever was any, and if there was, I don't think I would
want it........would YOU?
-Tony Medina, Whittier, CA.