(Publisher’s Note: This is a fictional article that has been republished for the spooky season.)
Deputies discovered this morning the apparition recovered from a vacant medical facility at Roney’s Point had drawn a circle around an area in the city of Wheeling, but officials are not certain what the oval signifies because there are no homes or cemeteries within the space.
“It’s just a blank space that only has Interstate 70 in it,” Ohio County Sheriff Howard Thomas explained. “We’re working internally on a few different theories right now.”
The poltergeist was transported late Saturday night to the Ohio County Sheriff’s Office in downtown Wheeling after reports of screams were received by dispatchers with the Ohio County 911 Center. When deputies and Sheriff Thomas arrived at the scene, they did not hear screams but did observe a light on the inside of the dilapidated building.
After entering the building, they encountered the glowing poltergeist that delivered only one message: “Take me home.” The ghost appears to be a female wearing only a hospital gown and a wedding ring on her left hand.
“Since Saturday night, we have asked her a lot of questions in an effort to gain more information about where ‘home’ could be. She will look right at us when we’re talking to her, but there’s not been a reaction until we found the marking on the map we left in the room,” Sheriff Thomas said. “The deputy on duty did not see her do it, so we’re just going to work with what we have.
Is It the Path to Take?
Interstate 70 flows along 14.5 miles through Ohio County from the Ohio to Pennsylvania borders, and the freeway has been under construction for more than a year. In fact, the eastbound lanes of I-70 in the area circled was closed to traffic on Feb. 1.
The construction in the area immediately east of Wheeling is scheduled to continue through October, and the remainder of the $214 million “Roads to Prosperity” project is expected to be completed by February 2022. Sheriff Thomas, however, does not expect the closures and detours to negatively impact the ongoing investigation.
“We’re thinking it’s a clue about what direction to take at this point, and there are a lot of older neighborhoods where she may have lived before going to Roney’s Point,” Thomas said. “If she knew about the interstate at the time of her death, that means she must have been a patient at the hospital between the 1960s until the place closed in 1972. It could be the way to take her home.”
The older neighborhoods mentioned by the sheriff include East Wheeling and the “Goosetown” area of the neighborhood, downtown Wheeling, North Wheeling, and Wheeling Island. The long history of those areas, however, leaves a lot for the department to research.
“We’re just happy that we have something to go with right now,” Thomas said. “We have a deputy with her 24 hours a day, and we continue to ask her questions about her home and now about this path along I-70. So far, there’s been nothing, but we’ll keep trying.
“No other law enforcement agency has ever handled anything like this case, and that’s why we keep refusing help from all these paranormal groups that keep calling, and anyone else,” he said. “If her home is in Ohio County, we’re going to find it. I believe she knows she has help now, and she’s just waiting for us to figure it all out.”
