ARKANSAS CITY — Ghost hunter May Duvall stood near the jury box of the old Desha County Courthouse and began peppering the spirits with questions.
Holding a thin dowsing rod in each hand, Duvall told the ghost with whom she said she hoped to communicate to cross the rods if the answer is no, open them if the answer is yes.
"What is your name? Is your name Willard?" she asked. "Is your name Ben? Is your nameMark? Are you a female?"
"No, so you're a male. OK," Duvall continued. "Are you here because you were sentenced? Were you sentenced to 20 years? Life? Did you win your case?"
Duvall, an investigator with the Spirit Seekers Paranormal Investigation Research & Intervention Team, was one of more than a half-dozen team members at the courthouse Saturday night and Sunday morning.
The group wired the 106-yearold courthouse, a nearby church and an old jail with audio andvideo recorders, electromagnetic field meters and other gadgets seeking proof of spiritual activity.
For years, locals who work at the courthouse have claimed it's haunted by a ghost they nicknamed Willard. County Judge Mark McElroy said courthouse staff members have reported spiritual activity unexplainable by human logic.
According to local lore in this 531-population town near the Mississippi River, a man who lostmoney gambling burned a string of hotels. He was convicted and ordered hanged on the courthouse steps in the early 1900s. Shortly before his death, he declared his innocence and cursed the clock atop the courthouse, saying it would never work properly again.
Some say the clock stopped immediately after the man died.
McElroy, the county judge since 1993, said the clock has never worked properly. Sometimes it jumps forward, sometimes back. Sometimes the long hand reads the hour and the short hand reads the minutes. The bell often malfunctions.
One night a few years ago, the bell rang constantly, keeping residents awake for hours before McElroy arrived to shut it off.
Besides the clock, McElroy said at least two people including County Assessor Gaye Brown have reported seeing a nicely dressed old woman at the courthouse after hours.
"In 1992 or 1993, I had stayed late after the courthouse closed, and when I walked out the front door and started my car to leave, I turned and looked and there was a lady outside the courthouse dressed in a white, turnof-the-century outfit," Brown said. "I turned and then lookedback and she was gone. That was the first time and the last time I ever saw her. I thought it must have been an aberration because we had heard stories about that courthouse."
Asked if she thinks the courthouse is haunted, Brown said, "Let me put it this way: There is some reason why that clock won't work, and nobody knows why."
On Saturday night, courthouse staff members sat in the dark courtroom on the second floor, watching and listening for ghosts and goblins.
"This is kind of like watching paint dry ... ," said McElroy, who doubles as a standup comedian.
"Yeah, I want to see a ghost," added Rita Kolb, the Desha County treasurer.
Alan Lowe, co-founder of Spirit Seekers, said preliminary reports Saturday night showed little spiritual activity.
"We've heard some mumbling and footsteps and we saw some orbs on the video, although most of the orbs [balls of light] are nothing," Lowe said. "Just from what we've seen preliminarily, I'd say there's something paranormal going on in the courthouse and the church, but it's not really grabbing you in the face."
Lowe founded Spirit Seekers after being convinced his own home in Roland is haunted. He said his wife asked him one night to sit on the couch silently and listen to an elderly couple, apparently spirits from another generation, argue with each other.
"The argument was as plain as day," Lowe said. "I didn't believe her at first but now I'm convinced. Since then, I've felt fingers [of spirits] run through my hair while I'm painting in the home."
The Spirit Seekers have investigated the state Capitol, the Old State House, the Loony Bin comedy club and a former tuberculosis sanitarium in Booneville.
Jason Hall, the team's assistant director of investigations, said it's important for the team to remain objective during investigations: Just because they hear footsteps, for example, doesn't mean a particular site is haunted.
It could be the foundation of the building, Hall said. Older buildings, like the Desha County Courthouse, are more apt to produce unexplainable noises, he said.
"You don't want to put trash out there, because if you do you lose your credibility," Hall said. "We are cautious. We don't just throw a bunch of junk out there.Everything we see, we don't just say, 'that's a ghost.'"
Hall spent time alone in the courtroom with a recorder Saturday night and tried to communicate with the spirits.
His recording sounded like this:
"If you want us to leave, make a noise," Hall said, pausing for a response.
"If I don't hear a noise I assume you want us to stay because you like us here," he continued.
"Great, I'm glad you want us to stay."
At that point, a noise sounding like two quick snaps of wind could be heard over the recording.
A ghost? Possibly, but Hall said he needs to replay the recording on a more sophisticated soundediting program to make sure.
"We'll find out later," he said. "That noise definitely wasn't me. It was something else."
Arkansas, Pages 7, 8 on 02/23/2009