By Wayne Thomas
Grand Rapids Ghost Hunters
It was a Wednesday morning May 18, 1927, just about fifteen minutes after the start of the last day of the year at Bath Consolidated School. An alarm clock sounds in the basement of the North Wing, triggering a chain reaction of predetermined madness that still echoes through time, 94 years later. The Bath school massacre remains the deadliest school disaster in American history, ultimately resulting in the appalling loss of some 38 grade school children and six adults with at least 58 others, suffering disfiguring injuries.
A combination of hundreds of pounds of dynamite and pyrotol, a World War I explosive designed to cause a fiery blast, had been packed under the school floor with the apparent intent to destroy the entire school and kill everyone in it. However, it’s estimated that between 500 and 600 lbs. of explosives hidden in the South Wing did not detonate due to the initial blast causing a short circuit. It’s reported the bomb could be heard several miles away. Mothers were among the many who came running to the scene of unspeakable carnage and were met with a “muffled chorus of moans and screams, and cries for help” from under the rubble.
Sometimes, extraordinary circumstances surrounding a person’s death can lead to unrest. Murder, suicide, and war can serve as devices cutting lives short and leaving “unfinished business.” It’s theorized that death can come so quickly that a person becomes confused and doesn’t even know they are dead, resulting in haunting spirits. Wishing peace for the families, the living and dead. One such case is the documented evidence that paranormal author and investigator Kathleen Tedsen has that links to the ghost of a little girl, a former student who died during the Bath massacre.
Ben Goldman, of Afterlife Road Paranormal, probably knows more details of the Bath disaster than most people. While attending Michigan State University, Goldman did a capstone documentary on the Bath School massacre. Goldman heads up a team of MSU students and paranormal investigators who produce Afterlife Road: A Haunted Michigan Webseries on YouTube. Goldman and crew have taken viewers on more than 100 seamless journeys to historic locations rumored to be haunted. Their documentary style finds them running and falling, and dropping the camera. You can cry with them at Bath Cemetery or be scared enough to scream during their 10- to 15-minute videos, perfect for your adult Halloween party.
Goldman was the first guest on our podcast to talk about haunted roads. Stories of 7 Gables Road — located in Dansville and considered the most haunted road in Michigan — suggests if you hear a scream and you are the last one over the fence, you would die. There is a lady in white at this location, which appears to be a recurring phenomenon at several haunted roads.
Goldman was on Cryptic Frequencies and the Grand Rapids Ghost Hunters podcast episodes, 12, 27, and 51.
