• SITE
• HOMES
• MOTORS
• CAREERS
• STUFF

BAYSIDE – John Campbell had shed his shirt in the sweltering heat inside the old ’40s-era hotel, now a ’70s-era hippie commune. He peered out his second-floor window late in the afternoon when long shadows reached for Copano Bay across the street from the mansion.

At first, he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him but, no, they weren’t. Below, on the street, what appeared to be an old hag with a scarf slowly crept through the shadows. Then she looked up, and stared straight into John’s eyes before vanishing.

Campbell had delved in voodoo. After all, he was from Louisiana, where the old religion was commonplace. He had always been fascinated with it – and the blues genre of music. He figured you really did have to sell your soul to be able to play the blues. And Campbell was willing – like legend says blues great Robert Johnson did at the crossroads. However, Campbell thought he could best the demons that levied a price for success.

Campbell never forgot that eerie encounter with a shadowy hag in Bayside at the commune’s home. Built in 1875 and originally known as the Wood Mansion, Campbell shared it with his loved ones and friends.

He went on to become an accomplished blues guitarist. He recorded several records with Elektra and successfully promoted those CDs in Europe. After Stevie Ray Vaughn died, Campbell was being considered as the guitarist to head Vaughn’s band, Double Trouble.

But it was not to be. The demons that plagued John caught up with him on June 13, 1993, and Campbell died in his sleep from heart failure at the age of 41. Many say it was that old hag who finally came for payment.

***

Over the years, Campbell’s malevolent-vision story passed on through various people at the Wood Mansion, now owned by Michael Selzer. With the planning of a reunion of musicians, family and friends of Campbell in Bayside Oct. 10, a preliminary ghost hunt to investigate the old-hag apparition was approved by Selzer, and the Gulf Coast Ghost Hunters Association was invited to do a ghost investigation of the historic mansion.

However, Selzer said, “I’ve never felt anything but safe and good in this house. There’s nothing malevolent here.”

Dena Mann, 39, leases living space at the Wood Mansion. She’s been there a little more than a year.

“When Michael’s not here, they have a party around here,” she says. “There’s lots of movement up there. Michael could be gone and I am, like, trying to sleep. But I’ve never felt anything evil. It’s very friendly. Nothing destructive.”

The preliminary ghost hunt began at 7 p.m. Aug. 9.

Patrick Zapata coordinates most of the ghost hunts in South Texas and did so for the Wood Mansion. Zapata is a member of the Corpus Christi chapter of the Gulf Coast Ghost Hunters Association. The Corpus Christi chapter and the Mathis chapter joined forces to investigate the Wood Mansion.

The ghost hunters entered the house akin to a SWAT team. They set up about $20,000 worth of equipment in a triage area on the second floor of the stately structure and began to use their instrumentation throughout the night.

“I’m a very skeptical person. During the years, 90 percent of the time we find nothing, or we can debunk it with reasonable means,” Zapata said.

Zapata purposely did not study the history of the Wood Mansion, but many people in its history had lodged in the old place and some probably died there: The John Howland Wood family beginning in the later 1800s, numerous people in the ’40s hotel called the Copano Bay Inn, many hippies in the ’70s commune and now Selzer and Mann.

Zapata shakes his head in disbelief these days when he thinks back to that night when he and his team grew excited about a ghostly presence on the first floor on the bay side of Selzer’s home, exactly where Mann’s bedroom lay.

That evening, he’d said, “Tonight, I came here with an open mind. It’s rare. To me, it’s a child in there, a boy or a girl.”

Zapata said he saw the apparition come very near him. “One time it felt my hand.” The 16-year paranormal veteran said the occurrence was exactly what paranormal teams look for.

He described the incident in detail:

He used an instrument to project his voice to frequencies the human ear doesn’t detect – electronic voice projection.

“I asked if the child could jump on top of the bed. Told it that is was OK and that it would be great way to verify that they were there with us and that they could hear us.”

Zapata and Mann’s dad, Cliff Mann, were sitting on the bed at the time. “I saw a shadow coming straight at me. The shadow was short, under 4-feet tall. It had no visible features, but just like a dark outline of a child,” Zapata said.

“I’m not surprised,” Dena Mann said. “There’s more ghosts here than that, too. Sometimes I get an eerie feeling and the hair on my arms stand up.”

Zapata said the visage sat or jumped on the bed, and “the bed shook and this was felt not only by me, but by Cliff Mann, who was sitting on the bed.”

In disbelief, Zapata tried to recreate the situation with the lights on, but he could not do it; the bed was solid and would not shake the same way. “We found ourselves just scratching our heads.”

Zapata had another team enter the room as he left it. He thought maybe a second verification would help.

“I told them what had happened and left them alone for about 30 minutes,” he said. “When I returned, a team member told me he saw what appeared to be a short, black shadow walk across the room and blocked the light of an alarm clock that was situated next to the bed. I would say that room on the first floor has some paranormal activity.”

***

The Gulf Coast Ghost Hunters Association wants to do a full follow-up investigation. And they have planned it for Friday, the day of the John Campbell reunion. But, this time, Zapata plans to use guests to help in the investigation. Each guest will be handed a piece of equipment to help the paranormal teams.

“This is as real as it gets,” he said. “Most people only see it on TV, the attendees who participate will tag along with our investigators as we walk the hallways and rooms of the Wood Mansion, and as we search for the spirits who people claim ‘haunt’ the mansion. As the people who tagged along with us during our first investigation, it’s something they will never forget.”

Zapata has not forgotten the story handed down by John Campbell – the old hag apparition.

“John Campbell’s story alone was interesting and something we thought was worth investigating … It is quite possible that John was the only person who saw this. For some reason, the spirit appeared to him and only to him,” he said.

Zapata added that people often are exclusive audiences for certain ghosts. “Why this is, I really cannot tell you.”