Brian Clune - Haunted San Pedro

Warehouse number one at the entrance to the harbor. This famous landmark is said to be haunted as well.

Published by Haunted America

A Division of The History Press

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2016 by Brian Clune

All rights reserved

First published 2016

e-book edition 2016

All photographs are by the author unless otherwise noted.

ISBN 978.1.43965.763.8

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016936701

Print edition ISBN 978.1.46713.577.1

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

The beauty of the glass expanded the spirit, let it loose among the clouds and in nature.

author Anais Nin after visiting the Wayfarers Chapel

FOREWORD

When originally asked to pen the foreword to Brian Clunes new book titled Haunted San Pedro, I was impressed that someone of Brians acumen had an interest in things that defied explanation, namely stories and legends of a ghostly nature said to inhabit the Rancho San Pedro area, which is rich in history and represents one of the first California land grants, not to mention the first to win a patent in the United States by the Mexican government.

Brian wanted to delve into the mysteries residing in areas such as the Fort McArthur Museum, the spectrally infested Drum Barracks in Wilmington, the USS Iowa, the Vincent Thomas Bridge and other haunted places where spirits have been reportedly cropping up over the years, including the noisy poltergeists that apparently clomp up and down the long, winding staircase at the historic Point Fermin Lighthouse, which once had a family of ten living there.

Ive often wondered if the primal element of water itself somehow has an influence over areas such as San Pedro when it comes to spurring on ghostly manifestations. After all, the earth itself was once covered by it back in primordial times, and if it werent for the existence of water on this planet, no worldly life could exist. So it is that the great Pacific borders San Pedro and the entire Rancho Palos Verdes Peninsula. And of course, the Port of Los Angeles, located within San Pedro, is a major international seaport.

On this business of landmasses poised in proximity to large bodies of water attracting a greater number of occult case studies, it is a common theory among supernatural researchers that where there is water, often there is paranormal activity. A building with an open well in its basement or a structure constructed on an underground spring may harbor more spirit entities than those built on dry earth. Author Troy Taylor once described a situation in which a gymnasium back in the Midwest was built over an underground lake and the roar of the crowd can still be heard long after the games have concluded. Perhaps when the natural environment is conducive, the spectral sounds of long-distant memories can somehow be played back once again as if the witnesses were temporarily locked into a Twilight Zone like replay of forgotten memories trapped in time.

Most people who visit the San Pedro area are surely impressed by its grand vistas overlooking the blue expanse of the ocean that, depending on their point of reference, sometimes afford a distant glimpse of nearby Catalina Island, an enchanted island attracting millions of tourists each year to partake of its seasonal wonders. It is the pristine beauty and tranquil nature of this watery setting, ideally portrayed on picture postcards, that invite our interest in the exotic side of things. People who come here are so entranced with the lands inherent beauty and vistas with nary a thought for things of a more macabre and perplexing nature. However, the land and its majestic bluffs as framed by the splendor of the nearby coastal sea sometimes call out to us in a different language, evoking mysteries of a forgotten past or lost stories of real people who lived and lost their lives here, perhaps in unknown or homicidal incidences. Perhaps even a hint of the native Tongva Indian culture that inhabited these shores long ago sometimes springs to life, an indistinct voice or a tribal drum evolving out of the mists. How many unsolved deaths relating to the sea itself are hiding beneath the waves of time? No one knows for sure. Except for rare written accounts, time has eroded the memories lost in the ever-expanding fabric of the ages. However, there is one major story contained within the pages of this book that I can avow to be factual and quite extraordinary since I was present and completely involved as the lead investigator of this case back in 1989.

A Haunting on Eleventh Street actually took place several blocks south of Gaffey in one of two small twin bungalows built at the turn of the century. A young woman named Jackie Hernandez, recently separated from her husband (Al Hernandez) and living with her three-year-old son, Jamie, and infant daughter, Samantha, would become the victim of one of the most bizarre poltergeist cases of all time.

In the late 80s, I worked with Dr. Barry Taff, noted parapsychologist, who studied under Dr. Thelma Moss (The Probability of the Impossible) at UCLA at a time when an actual parapsychology lab had been instituted for studying things that go bump in the night. It was he and fellow student Kerry Gaynor who investigated a woman living in Culver City named Doris Bither, who claimed to have been not only physically assaulted but also carnally raped by three invisible creatures living in a house similar in size to Jackies. The case was eventually novelized by writer Frank DeFelitta, who based his story on personal experiences at the Bither home after a fullbodied apparition, bathed in a lime-green light, manifested in front of not only himself but also his protg, Mort Zarkoff, along with a bevy of UCLA students staked out inside the womans bedroom in 1974. The story gained even greater notoriety with the release of the 20th Century Fox movie version of The Entity in 1983, starring Barbara Hershey.

The San Pedro case in which I became embroiled was initiated by a woman named Susan Castaneda, a neighbor of Jackies, who contacted Taff after seeing him on a local TV show (LA Now) featuring a segment on occult stories around Los Angeles. He, in turn, contacted me and invited me to rendezvous with him and several friends in San Pedro to interview the woman and her neighbors about the paranormal experiences they were reporting within the small frame home. At the time, I had already gone on several forages into the unknown with Taff, having thus far yielded little in the way of tangible phenomena, so I had no expectations whatsoever that this case would be any different. Boy was I mistaken! I had persuaded a skeptical associate and friend of mine named Jeff Wheatcraft to come along and check out the case since he had professional photographic gear, and coupled with my pro video camcorder, we agreed to meet Taff and his cohorts at the Eleventh Street home.