By Chelsea Zhao
Staff Writer
Dead Bodies in Thatcher Woods:
According to a Chicago Tribune article, a 22-year-old Concordia University nursing student was fatally stabbed about 25 feet away from a jogging path in 1993, reason of death unclear. According to a 2013 article, a female body with multiple stab wounds was found in the woods inside a plastic container in the preserve. The reason of the murder was a domestic dispute. In 2016, a body in a plastic bag was found by two hikers. Fernando Casa, 19, died from a gunshot wound in the abdomen.
The Pool Underneath the Underground
The underground used to be a swimming pool which was completed in 1923. Starting with the class of 1926, candidates of degree were required to pass a swimming test. In 1967 during civil rights demonstrations, Dominican sisters brought African American children to use the pool during summer. The pool fell into disrepair in late 1990s.
“We [students] had an event there when I was a student where we watched Jaws in the pool while floating around on rafts,” Katie Horan ’97 said. “I have asked other alumni and the reason the pool was closed was because of maintenance costs, needed repairs, low utilization and high liability costs.”
In 2008, the pool was drained, and heavy scaffolding was placed over the pool. The napping and studying students would have little idea that not far beneath their feet, encased an empty, hollow pool.
“The pool was never blocked; however, you could see a room window on the fourth floor that a Nun supposedly hung herself,” Carolyn Linton-Canfield ’87 said. “The door would have been located across the hall from [4th floor] North Bathroom; the wall is sealed; all other floors have a room in that location. The stone faces were sanded down because of the thought that faces above doors attract bad spirits. The 4th floor of the admin building/art floor very occupied-the stairwell was crazy active. The tunnel between Admin and Arts building, along with the balcony of the main theater was also very active.”
A Horror Story Inspired by the Noonan Reading Room
The reading room was opened in Oct. 1930 with essential books shelved in the third floor lobby. The Noonan Reading Room was built next to the Rosary Chapel for the symbolism of prayer and study. When Rebecca Crown Library was built in 1972, the reading room became a quiet study room.
In 2003, an alumna named Luisa Scala Buehler ‘72 immortalized the place in her novel The Rosary Bride: A Cloistered Death. This book recounts the story of a female skeleton found in a fireplace. The protagonist of the story enlisted the help of a nun and a friend as she unravels a love triangle, a double murder, and a family ruled by jealousy and political power. For $4.75 on Amazon, you can get the paperback book that shall bring new chills when you find yourself alone in the reading room.
Fine Arts Building
Joel Nayder, the campus safety and compliance administration officer, has worked for the Dominican campus for the past 21 years and often heard maintenance workers reporting paranormal instances.
“I had one of the maintenance supervisors tell me that their first night, they had the phone ring. It was an older, disconnected phone that had rang on him,” Nayder said. “Just oddball stuff like that. Door handles jiggle as they are walking past, and they can physically see them, you know, the handle vibrating. Wind tunnels, when doors are closed and the area are secured, when there shouldn’t a wind tunnel, you know, like paper flapping.”
Around 2004, Nayder was patrolling the Lund auditorium. He was walking past the doors of the auditorium when a strong smell of cookies permeated the air. What makes it stranger is that it is only at a specific spot, past which point he could not smell it again.
In 2007, Nayder stopped at a room in Lewis on the second floor. A maintenance worker asked him to stay in the room while he went out to empty a basket. It was around 3 or 3:30 a.m. and a person stopped by to talk to Nayder. They had a brief conversation on how his works are. He recalled vividly it was a female voice, but he could not see the person because she was in the hallway. When she left, Nayder called out to the maintenance worker who was at the end of the hall. But other than the two of them, the hallway was empty.
Another time, while passing by the fine arts building, Nayder said he saw a “white image” pass by the windows of the east-facing wall. He could see the figure passing the first and second pillar in the window but never appeared in the third.
The strangest occurrence of all happened on the fourth floor of fine arts building. It is a narrow hallway referred to as the “catwalk”. According to Nayder, the catwalk is a metal-mess walkway and the light switch on the floor is of a strange combination and could only be turned on a certain way. He made the accident of turning off the light and heard footsteps closing in on him and another security officer.
“And the second we turned the lights off, we could hear footsteps on the catwalk” Nayder said. “You can hear the metal clank, like something was walking on them. It lasted about ten to fifteen seconds, and it felt like something was walking right up to me, nose to nose.”
After that, he could not turn the lights back on again himself. When his partner did, the catwalk was entirely empty.
“It was one of those—there’s something here, I can’t see it, but there’s something here,” Nayder said. “But they turned the light switch on and there’s nothing in there. It’s completely empty except two of us.”
Photo credits: The Dominican archives
