002: Can’t Get Out – A True Old West Ghost Story

Tonight’s story is about a man that lived in a historic bank building that was robbed by the notorious American bank robber Jesse James in 1876. Now this isn’t what makes his story interesting. What makes his story interesting is the tenacious entity he encountered that physically wouldn’t let him leave. “I don’t know what it was. It was terrifying. And there’s no explanation for it. I have no explanation for it…” RYAN AZEVEDO: You’re listening to Terrifying true stories. Can buildings hold the memories or imprints of the things that happened there? You’re about to meet someone that lived in a historic bank building in 1876. It was robbed by the notorious American bank robber Jesse James. Now this isn’t what makes his story interesting. What makes his story interesting is the entity that he encountered that wouldn’t let him leave. I call this one “Can’t get out.” ERICK SOMMERS: My name is Eric summers. I was working and living in a small town called Northfield, Minnesota. I was working for the Northfield News. About this this town, this little town of Northfield, Minnesota. It has two really high end, liberal arts universities in St. Olaf College and Carleton College. Carleton is kind of a Midwest, Harvard, to a lot of people. It’s really tough to get into a really expensive school. That other school is no joke either. It’s a little bit different than like your average town of 12,000 people. One of the things that is sort of unique about it is it had this bank early on in the expansion of American history. and that’s kind of the lead into the story here because this bank got robbed in 1876. By Jesse James and his game, Justin Frank James and his gang. I lived upstairs in the old bank building, it looks quaint. Now, it does. It’s the it’s the first word that comes to mind. But that’s because the town has gone to great lengths to make itself especially its downtown. Very quaint looking. It’s got this really pretty square in front of it with a you know, a sort of civil war victory statue right next to a dammed river that has, you know, an old mill across from it. So it has all these old trees around so it looks really quaint. But if you get up close, and you can sort of take out the 1930s popcorn wagon and the happy smiling people and the you know, sort of faux 1930s lighting fixtures on the lamp poles if you can take all that out and just look at the building. It’s really imposing. Even though it’s only two storeys tall. There two really tall storeys, immensely high ceilings, really tall sort of deep set windows it was it was just just great. But the building itself from the outside is built like a fortress to have apartments upstairs. And I was living in one of them being upstairs at night, you know, the building sort of creeks and settled sort of ornate chandelier type lighting and I came home one night it was late at night I came home went upstairs ate, fed, the cat changed, decided to take out the trash and took out the trash a pump. So coming out of my apartment, there’s these big wide hallways, but then there’s a really steep and fairly narrow stair going straight down and in the hallway widens out and at the bottom of the stairs, you can either sort of go outside or make a U turn and go back along what is the west wall of the building to the trash room where there there’s a steel door there and it’s kind of under the stairs at this point. It’s not really under it but it feels like it’s under it because the stairs are rising so steeply beside you and then it’s just a regular old steel door at the treasure had one of those doors that you could not lock from the inside like it closed automatically behind you and you needed a key to enter it from the outside you needed the same key like you know, any apartment building, but you couldn’t lock it behind yourself like there was no way to actually lock the door. And there were motion sensor lights in the trash room. This is all standard equipment in American apartment buildings. You know, you don’t have to fumble around for the light switch you open the door and the light turns on. You go in drop your trash off then turn around and leave. I did the first part but when I turned around to leave I couldn’t get out. Why isn’t the door working doors are always supposed to work. And then the lights went out. And nothing I could do would make the lights work. No motion. Nothing. It was weird… and then it got cold. As I said it’s one of those doors that you can’t lock so you you kind of walk into a door like that right like all one motion. I was turning the handle and taking a step with my left foot at the right at the same moment and then the door didn’t open and I you know kind of banged into it and came to a complete dead stop. Like that’s really weird. Why isn’t the door working doors are always supposed to work. And then the lights went out. And nothing I could do ...