Come and experience the Times-Union's haunted basement this Halloween season.
Many people are unaware, but over the years there have been some pretty creepy stories published in the Times-Union.
The memories of these stories - and their hapless ghostly subjects - live on in the basement of the newspaper building.The haunted basement will be open from 7 to 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays during the Halloween season. The dates are Oct. 16, 17, 23, 24, 30 and 31. Cost is $5 and all proceeds go toward the Times-Union Newspapers in Education program. A special, kid-friendly version of the haunted basement will be available from 6 to 8 p.m. Oct. 30 during Warsaw's Downtown Spooktacular event.
Long ago in Warsaw, a quite morbid gentleman decided he wanted to be a coroner and perform autopsies. The problem was, he had no training and needed subjects to practice on. It wasn't long before he was caught and executed for his heinous crimes. The Times-Union reported the story, and now, he and his victims live on in the haunted basement.
An abandoned child was found living alone in rundown house in Kosciusko County long ago. No one knows at what age the child was abandoned. Our reporters at the time noted the child was completely reclusive and deathly afraid of other human beings, surviving only on rainwater, insects and vermin found in the home. The child was institutionalized and died many years later. But the ghosts of those childhood experiences still inhabit the haunted basement.
Many years ago, there was quite a battle over where to build the first library in Kosciusko County. Grudges were held for decades. Even though all those involved have long passed on, the grudges remain in the library of the haunted basement. Keep your eyes open as you peruse the shelves.
Ghosts are restless souls who are caught between the worlds of the living and the dead. Some are happy and some are sad. But some, like the most heinous criminals we've reported on over the years, prefer to remain in haunted basement's asylum. Beware.
Suffering from a peculiar and particularly morbid mental disorder, a man years ago was arrested and jailed for canabalism. He died in jail, but he and his kitchen are alive and well in the haunted basement.
On Halloween night, long, long ago, a young boy entered a maze. For days he wandered aimlessly before becoming so despondent he took his own life. The boy still wanders the maze in the haunted basement. See if you can find him - and a way out.
