T H E   D E M P S E Y   H O U S E

What I give form to in daylight is only one per cent of what I have seen in darkness --M. C. Escher

Dempsey House, Leonardo, New Jersey

[Dempsey House pix and story submitted by Tart]

Virtual Scoob Tart bravely explored the ominous Dempsey House in Leonardo, New Jersey, and was cool enough to share her story and her pix with us. Above, the "D" on the creepy front gate of the house. Below, Tart's experience in her own words...

"Here are the stories that I heard. The first is that Mr. Dempsey was sick and old and couldn't get out of bed, and he depended on his wife to take care of him. One day she went out somewhere and for some reason she never came back. So Mr. Dempsey just laid upstairs alone until he died. A while later one of the neighbors called the cops, probably because of the smell of a rotting body. The cop went into the house and went upstairs, and a few minutes later he came outside and hung himself on a tree. And no one knew why because he didn't say anything, he just killed himself. I thought this was pretty bizarre until I was walking across the street and noticed a rope dangling from a tree. I took a pic, but it's hard to see, you gotta look carefully...

Above, l-to-r: the view of the house from the street, a close up of the front of the house,  the back of the house. Below, l-to-r: the side of the house, the boiler in the basement, and the branch where the cop was supposed to have hung himself

...in another story I heard, Mr. Dempsey lived in the house with his wife and three kids, and one night he went crazy and killed them all. Then he burned the bodies in the three boilers that were down in the basement, and then he killed himself. I got a picture of one of the boilers (above, center); I took this picture through the basement window, because actually going into the basement was a little too creepy for me. The night before when we were sneaking around the house, my friend swore she saw something run across the basement. It was probably just a raccoon, but we ran like hell and didn't look back. On the bottom right is a pic of the branch where the cop hung himself (supposedly). The rope is hard to see, but look towards the right end or the branch (above, right), under a little cluster of leaves, and you can see it hanging there. Enjoy the pics, I had a lot of fun and broke a lot of laws getting them! And special thanks to Melanie and Gabby- they were with me when I took these pics, and without them I would have wimped out --Tart"

And a very SPECIAL THANKS from us to Tart for sharing the deliciously spooky pix and story with us!!

You can email Tart at: TragicTart@aol.com

All Rights Reserved by the Author. Reprinted here with permission.

*V I S I T O R   C O M M E N TS

Our visitor Chris writes, "I live near by the house and have been inside many times with my friends. Right now there's about 1 foot of water in the basement and we had to make floating docks from wood from the first floor to get around. The one picture- a boiler- is actually a furnace of some sort. The three boilers are actually on the other side, and are much larger. There's not much in the house. Once you make your way to a hole in the first floor, you can pull yourself through and then go up the stairs to the second floor where there is just a hole in the roof from the rain. A few radiators and doors are lying around, but that's it. I usually go in thinking there's a man with a shotgun across the street who owns the house and he sometimes comes over, rather than any mystery behind it... it's still pretty cool..."

+NO PLACE LIKE HOME+

Do you have a creepy tale and/or some interesting pix to share?