Real, Local Spooks

Dyer Lane:

Located off Watt Avenue and Tan Woods Road is the first haunted location, Dyer Lane.

According to the Sacramento Press, Dyer Lane has been a place of horror since the 1930s when it served as a place of possible lynching for the Ku Klux Klan.

Since, then it has been the scene of numerous automobile accidents including one that occurred in 1972.

Two drunk drivers got into their cars and began to race each other down the road; one of swerved off the road and smashed into a tree. Sacramento Press reported the driver had been ejected from the car through the windshield head first, crushing his head against a tree. Legend has it that a man walks up and down the lane with a crushed skull and blood dripping down his face.

Another legend is if you stop the car in the middle of Dyer Lane with the ignition left on, the car will turn itself off.

Dyer Lane is also where Bill Mullen, a Rio Linda High School student, was beaten to death by a gang in the mid-1980s.

But the lane’s most notorious legend may be one of a police officer who was killed on the road. Some claim to see a police car speeding down Dyer Lane, and then vanishing into thin air.

Similar sightings include a ghostly tractor that disappears whenever someone waves at its driver, among others, according to the Sacramento Press.

1426 F ST.:

Dorothea Puente ran a boarding house in the “80s in her 1,834 square-foot home at 1426 F St. She rented the rooms to mostly elderly and mentally challenged people. In 1988, authorities searched her home looking for a missing homeless man and discovered the bodies of seven people buried in her yard. After poisoning her victims, Puente continued to cash their Social Security checks, which authorities believe was her motive for killing. According to Serialmurderscalendar.com, her various murder cases included one in 1982, where she poisoned 61-year-old Ruth Monroe by giving her an overdose of Codeine and Tylenol. Puente told authorities that Monroe was depressed because her husband was terminally ill. The authorities ruled Monroe’s death as suicide.

In November, 1988 a body was found on Puente’s lawn. Puente was convicted of three murders in 1993 and sentenced to life in prison. She is incarcerated at Central California Women’s Facility. Still alive at the age of 81, News 10 and the Sacramento Bee reported late September that she has been transferred to an outside hospital and is dying of cancer. A collection of files from her court case are at the Center for Sacramento History at 551 Sequoia Pacific Blvd. Puente never admitted to any of the murders and insisted all her victims died of natural causes. The house where she committed these crimes remains vacant.

Arcade Wesleyan Church:

In the late 1970s, Richard Trenton Chase, “The Vampire of Sacramento,” was convicted of brutally murdering six people. His former apartment on Watt Avenue as well as the houses of the people he murdered are said to be haunted. He reportedly drank his victims’ blood and consumed some of their organs after killing them.

In January 1978, Chase committed a series of brutal murders. On Jan. 27, four days after murdering a pregnant woman, Chase entered a woman’s home and slaughtered four people. Evelyn Miroth, 38, had a friend over named Dan Meredith, 58, and was babysitting her 6-year-old son Jason and 20-month-old nephew. Meredith was found in a hallway with a gunshot wound to his head.

Miroth was found naked on her bed, her stomach ripped open and intestines pulled out.

Her son Jason was found on the other side of the bed with two gunshot wounds to the head.

The 20-month-old’s body was not found until March, after Chase was arrested. A janitor at the Arcade Wesleyan Church found the body in a small box near the parking lot with his head severed and a bullet wound to the head.

According to the Sacramento News and Review, the addresses of the homes where the killings took place were changed and the home on Merrywood was torn down. Chase died when he overdosed on prescription pills.

Halloween Attractions, Activities

Dave’s Pumpkin Patch:

Dave’s Pumpkin Patch, at 3010 Burrows Ave. in West Sacramento, is also offering some fall-themed attractions. The farm is open until Sunday. The Patch is open from 10 a.m. to dusk Sunday through Thursday and from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Attractions include “punkin chunkin,” where pumpkins are shot 500 yards through the air, a chickensville and petting zoo, face painting, several types of corn mazes, jump houses and pig races. An unlimited day pass giving access to all attractions costs $10 per person. Dave’s Pumpkin Patch has the only full-sized themed corn maze in the Sacramento area.

Zombie Train:

“Zombie Train,” a zombie flash public event on Friday, will feature participants dressing up as zombies and taking the light rail to the Night of 1000 Pumpkins event in Folsom. The event is free. The zombie group will board the light rail at exactly 6:28 p.m. at the Sacramento Valley station in downtown. The group will get off on Sutter Street in Folsom for the Night of 1,000 Pumpkins, where participants will light 1,000 jack-o’-lanterns along the street. The zombies will go on a bar crawl afterward, where special drinks will be made for those who dress as zombies. The event is appropriate for people over 21 years of age.

The Pumpkin Farm:

The Pumpkin Farm, located at 7736 Old Auburn Road in Citrus Heights, offers attractions such as a haunted barn, tower slides jumping castle, pony rides and a farm zoo. It is open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. until Sunday. A great place to take the family, the Pumpkin Farm features more than 200,000 pumpkins. Admission is free, parking is $4 and the attractions cost $2.50 each. Every year, the Pumpkin Farm holds a contest to see who can build the best and most creative scarecrow, awarding the winner with $1,500. Giant pumpkins are a new attraction at the farm, and one featured pumpkin weighs more than 800 pounds.

Tzahuiztil Sanchez can be reached at [email protected]