Monstrous
Ghosts, Poltergeists & Apparitions => Ghost hunters => Topic started by: Devious Viper on August 25, 2006, 03:46:49 AM
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Teen girl shot looking for ghosts
Owner fires from inside 'spooky' house
WORTHINGTON, Ohio - A teenager out looking for ghosts with friends was shot in the head and critically wounded near a house considered spooky by local teens, police said Wednesday. A man who lives in the house, Allen S. Davis, 40, was charged in the shooting and told reporters from jail that he was trying to drive off trespassers and didn't intend to hurt the teen girls, whom he called juvenile delinquents.
He said he fired his rifle out his bedroom window Tuesday night after hearing voices outside the home, which is across the street from a cemetery and blocked from view by overgrown trees and shrubbery. "I didn't know what their weaponry was, what their intentions were," he said. "In a situation like that, you assume the worst-case scenario if you're going to protect your family from a possible home invasion and murder."
The 17-year-old girl, Rachel Barezinsky, and two of her friends got out of their car parked near the home about 10 p.m. and took a few steps on the property, police Lt. Doug Francis said. They jumped back in when a girl in the car sounded the horn, and they heard what they thought were firecrackers as they drove away. The girls - all seniors at Thomas Worthington High School in suburban Columbus - drove around the block, and Barezinsky was struck while sitting in the car as they passed the house again and heard a second round of what turned out to be gunshots, Francis said.
Davis, a self-employed non-fiction writer, said he had prepared the rifle after numerous previous instances of trespassing, but he didn't know until Wednesday that teens considered his house haunted. Police should charge the teens with trespassing, he said. "It's really something how homeowners defend themselves and the way the laws are written, we're the ones brought up on charges while the perpetrators get little or nothing."
Francis said police do not intend to pursue criminal charges against the girls at this point.
As the girls' car drove away from the house, the driver noticed she had blood on her arm and passengers in the back seat also discovered blood, police said. They saw Barezinsky had collapsed in the front passenger's seat and drove until they could flag down two police officers. The other girls were not injured.
Some classmates at the high school, which has about 1,700 students, were planning a vigil Wednesday night at the football stadium. Principal Rich Littell said he had talked to Barezinsky, a well-known cheerleader, at a freshman welcome dance on Monday night. "It just kills you. She's a great kid, very, very athletic. She was looking forward to ... the tumbling she was going to do at the football game," he said.
Davis, who was charged with five counts of felonious assault, told officers he had been annoyed by trespassers and that he was aiming for the car's tires from his first-floor bedroom, police said. "He admitted to never calling the police, but it just had been occurring and he got frustrated and he was upset, saying someone trespassed on his property and he was protecting his property," Francis said.
Barezinsky, who also was struck in the shoulder, was taken to Ohio State University Medical Center in critical condition, police said.
The hospital would not provide an update on her condition.
Francis said Davis' home had a reputation at the high school for being haunted by ghosts and witches, and students have been daring each other to knock on the door or go in the yard. Zoning officers have visited the home where Davis lives with his 64-year-old mother because of complaints that the property has not been kept up, police said.
Betty Davis, 69, who lives around the corner, said Allen Davis was quiet and kept to himself. She said she's not related to him. "I guess last night was the last straw," she said. "I think it blew everybody's mind it would come to this."
source: The Cincinnati Enquirer http://news.enquirer.com
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COLUMBUS, Ohio An Ohio man is being held on a-half (m) million dollars bond after admitting he fired a rifle at kids sneaking around his house on a ghost hunt.
If convicted, he faces three-to-eight-years behind bars.
In a jailhouse interview, Allen Davis says he did not mean to hurt the kids. He called them delinquents who should not have been trespassing.
Seventeen-year-old Rachel Barezinski was critically injured in the shooting August 22nd, although her condition was uprgraded to fair last night.
Davis' 66-year-old house sits across from a cemetery. Barezinski's father says his daughter and others had gone out before to hunt for ghosts in cemeteries.
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It sounds like ghost hunting is dangerous for more than one reason!
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With spring coming and the interest in ghost hunting escalates this is an important and responsible thread ...
another thing to consider is that many old buildings often serve as a refuse for drug users and are subsequently strewn with assorted paraphernalia such as discarded hypodermic needles that if stepped on can be an HIV transmission possibility ...then there is the questionable structural integrity of abandoned buildings with rotted floors that may collapse, not to mention the variety of vermin like; rats and bats that may be encountered to be considered ....
old cemeteries can also play host to a plethora of hazards such as the aforementioned unsavory elements they attract, but last year when I backed into an old pillar style monument while taking a photo that stood at over 7 feet tall and it toppled then crashed into the adjacent headstone shattering it, I shuttered to think what would have happened it fell on some unsuspecting fellow explorer had I not been alone at the time :|...
barek :-)
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Nothing new here folks - I recall the story of a man being shot by someone who took him for a ghost (during a flap in London, if I recall correctly?)....... and this was sometime in the late Victorian / early 20th Century.
The main worry for me personally - especially in out-of-doors or abandoned locations - is exiting a site and finding syringes sticking out of me!!
Regards,
Enderfay :-D
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Couldn't all that just be called Darwinism at it's finest? :roll:
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My heart goes out for the kids. I know they were curious and having fun but geez..... Have some sense. Thats the way it is back home. If you walked onto someones property you got shot at. I feel for the guy but at the same time he shot at kids. This wasnt a thug coming to rob him. Sounds like he got a little too trigger happy.
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hmm. ive heard this sort of thing all to often. when my parents lived in america , this sort of thing happened. only this was a pizza delivery boy who got shot when he rung the doorbell of the wrong house.
people shoud be less trigger happy
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I'd prefer them to be less stupid.... but, seriously, what's the likelihood of that?? Slim to none.
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more intelligent? sure , that'd be great , but i dont hold people on the whole in the greatest light.
I mean , inteligence? Slow down, one thing at a time, we're talking baby steps here. Ive met some people who are so dim i know my dog has a far superior inteligence.
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Change the 'some people' to 'most people'.