HPI Chronicles: Oakland Cemeteries Scouting Mission Part 1
by Paul Dale Roberts
(Elk Grove, CA, USA)
HPI Oakland Scouting Party
HPI Chronicles: The Oakland Cemetery Grave sites of The Black Dahlia and the Peoples' Temple Guyana Victims and an overnighter at the Sacramento Theater Company.
By Paul Dale Roberts, HPI Ghostwriter, Ghosthunter, Demonologist
Edited by Shannon 'Ms. Macabre' McCabe
I am getting up at 6am tomorrow (Feb 9, 2008 Saturday). I am meeting a bunch of HPI Paranormal Investigators-in-Training/Scouts at Starbucks on 15th and Broadway at 8am and then we are headed over to Starbucks at 420 West Grand, Oakland to meet up with Anah Denzeiberg, HPI Paranormal Investigator and Guide that will take us to two cemeteries. One is located at 6450 Camden Street, Oakland, and the other is located at 5000 Piedmont Avenue in Oakland.
Michele Stump, HPI Paranormal Investigator/Historian/Researcher, she says:
"The first one (cemetery) contains a mass grave of 412 unidentified victims of the Jonestown massacre. This is the Evergreen cemetery. Here is the website:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=4734 --- The other one contains the grave of Elizabeth Short, aka "The Black Dahlia". She was perhaps the most famous murder victim of all time. Her body was found completely bi-sected and lying in an empty lot in Downtown Los Angeles in 1947. Her murder is still a mystery and her killer was never brought to justice. This is the Mountain View Cemetery. Here is the website for more information: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=4490"
A quick look into the history of the Peoples' Temple. Charismatic Reverend Jim Jones started the Peoples' Temple in San Francisco. The church he created started innocently enough and he gathered many followers. Jones became friends with politicians and made sure his congregation would support the candidate of Jones' choice.
There were rumors of abuse being done on the members of the Peoples' Temple. Jim Jones decided to move his congregation to an isolated area in Guyana and called his new retreat Jonestown. More rumors surfaced, everything from torture, rape, slavery, drug use, brainwashing, unhealthy living conditions and many other atrocities. It was time for Senator Leo Ryan to look into these allegations. The Senator brought his team to investigate and when secret notes were passed to the Senator detailing the horror of Jonestown, the Senator took some members of the congregation with him. A team of Jones' assassins gunned the Senator and his team down. Later Jim called for a 'white night' and forced his congregation to drink poisoned Kool-Aid. Over 900 people died, including Jim Jones.
Let's do another quick look into history. Let's talk about Elizabeth Short, aka The Black Dahlia. January 1947, police found the body of a woman cut in half at the torso. Her body was found in the Crenshaw district of Los Angeles, CA. The body was of The Black Dahlia, she had been tortured, maimed and murdered. BD was carved into her body and her body was actually sawed in half. There was grass pushed into her private area. It was the worse crime scene that Los Angeles has ever experienced.
The Black Dahlia was a woman that was hungry for fame. She was a small town girl that went to Hollywood to become a movie star. She was very promiscuous and fooled with many servicemen and people in the movie business, as the story goes. She was even rumored to have had intimate relations with Marilyn Monroe. She finally met her grisly fate to an unknown killer. The Black Dahlia was playing Russian Roulette with her life by being a free spirit and trusting strangers. One of those strangers took her life in a horrific way.
Now that we looked into the history of these infamous cases, it's up to HPI to see if we can locate any paranormal activity at these grave sites.
Roll Call for HPI Paranormal Investigators-in-training: Anah Denzeiberg - Guide; Kevin Jones - Videographer for Current TV; Stephen Henderson; Monica Talani, Debbie Talani, Scott Reber, Jessie Garcia, Tavia Jones, Karen Dowd, Maria Alarcon, Amberine Frehman, Nicol Fletcher and Maria Eivers.
Roll Call for HPI Core Member Paranormal Investigators: Holly DeLaughter - Sensitive/Professional Photographer; Michele Stump - Researcher/Historian; Paul Dale Roberts - Ghostwriter, Tim Hawkins - Lead Investigator, Chris Grissom - Technician and Shannon McCabe, HPI president.
Our first stop was the Evergreen Cemetery. Michele Stump and I, gave a briefing on the history of the Peoples' Temple, Jonestown & the Guyana Poisoned Kool-Aid Massacre for all the investigators. Shannon McCabe gave a briefing in regard to how to use various ghost hunting equipment, how to analyze what they find and areas to conduct their search.
Shannon and I, broke up the teams and sent them on their way to do their investigations. Tim Hawkins located the Guyana victim's mass grave site, we all brought out our audio digital recorders for some possible EVPs. Debbie Talani scouted out a location for the Oakland Chapter Hell's Angels grave sites. I gave a history lesson on the Hell's Angels for the group and then we took digital photographs of the grave sites and did some EVP work. Debbie Talani took a picture of one of the Hell's Angel's grave site and it appears she captured some ectoplasm on her film. But after further scrutiny by Debbie, she ruled out the ectoplasm and determined it to be a glare. Debbie also showed Shannon and I, a picture she took at the last scouting mission at the Sutter Creek Palace, in which she captures what looks like a ghostly face on a picture hanging on the wall.
Our second stop was the gorgeous Mountain View Cemetery and Anah points out Section 66, which is where Elizabeth Short aka the Black Dahlia is buried. Michele Stump and I, give a brief history lesson the horrible crime that was committed upon the Black Dahlia, while Kevin Jones filmed away for Current TV. We did some more EVP work and snapped a whole lot of photos. Everything we investigated is pending analysis. After this investigation, Shannon and I, gave a debriefing on the purpose of this scouting mission, what we are seeking and how we can all become better investigators.
To end this fantastic scouting mission, we all headed over to the Raj India Cuisine, 4086 Piedmont Avenue, Oakland, CA 94611. If you ever have a chance, stop at this fabulous restaurant and try out their exotic food. I tried out their spicy lamb with bell peppers, herbs, Indian spices, tomatoes, curry over rice. My God, it made my ghostly taste buds tingle!
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