Capital Area Paranormal Society

Several months ago, I happened to come across Pine Lawn Manor on Facebook. It grabbed my attention immediately being that Pine Lawn manor was a former hotel turned into a nursing home. The Sumner Care rehab center is another location across the street that housed dementia patients. The buildings were closed in 2005 having had a bad reputation for treating patients poorly. For years I have heard fascinating stories about nursing homes being haunted. The reports of paranormal activity at this site run the gamut such as shadow people, full bodied apparitions, items being thrown, doors closing, loud mysterious noises, and growling; perhaps most disturbing, an entity described as “the crawler” or “ceiling walker”. Being that I am of short stature, I have a habit of looking down or straight ahead, so my odds of seeing a ceiling walker are thankfully highly undoubtful.

The investigation also served as a reunion between me and my dear friends, Lyndee and Sarah, which I had not seen in many, many years!  When Jim and I pulled up to the site we were unsure what to do.  The place was huge and we’d lost all phone connectivity.  Fortunately, a little old-fashioned getting out of the car and walking around did the trick, we were able to meet up with our co-investigators and the caretakers of the buildings. After a quick instructional briefing, we were left to start the investigation. 

We went back and forth between the Sumner Care Center and Pine Lawn Manor throughout the night. Considering the size of these locations, we were all in complete agreement, it was a good thing they were both single level.

Although we always painstakingly check, change and/or charge all equipment batteries before each investigation, we encountered many issues throughout the night. The flashlight Jim got out as soon as we pulled up had issues of dimming, seemingly drained, before coming back to normal. My digital recorder which normally runs for a good 20 hours, died within 10 minutes. Jim’s lasted longer than mine, but it too died an early death. Multiple flashlight issues, video cameras that failed unusually fast and IR lights prematurely drained multiple times.

Let’s start with the Sumner building. I heard a loud noise to start with by the resident dining area. Shortly after that I thought I heard my name. Near that same time, Sarah was at the end of the main hall and entered a room. Her K2 meter began lighting up and heard the shuffling sound of feet. Also, in that building she heard a blow whistle sound. I didn’t hear it at the time but caught it on my recorder. I was very impressed with her hearing abilities!!!

Later in the night, we were walking down the main hallway when I saw a shadow figure who appeared to be peaking around the corner. Almost immediately, the flux meter in that location went into alarm.

We had our motion detecting cat ball/toy go off a few times while it was sitting on the nurse’s station counter. I was thrilled to actually see it in action! I don’t know what was more exciting, that ball or finding the “special tub” that multiple YouTube investigators claimed was haunted by a woman who was said to have drowned there.

Back to the Flux meter, something certainly liked playing with us in that area. We would walk away, hear a loud noise and then the detector would go off. We would return, it would go quiet, but as we began walking away, it would happen again! Sarah had the thermal camera and the background showed off a lot of red. While reviewing the video from that area, it struck me that the Flux meter only went off when we were in the building. It seems like somebody REALLY wanted our attention!

We heard several loud bangs throughout the night, more so when the wind picked up! There was no way to pinpoint what could have been paranormal vs mother nature having a bit of fun with us. It got very intense at one point, adding to the cool, spooky atmosphere!

At the end of the night, as Lyndee and I were walking down the hall, we were shocked that the connecting door was closed! I guess they thought it was time for us to go too! As we walked back towards the front of the building, I saw the front door open and thought I saw Jim outside.  I was stunned when I turned and saw he was still packing up in the breakroom!

Ok, Pine Lawn Manor next; also, a very interesting building. I thought I heard kids laughing and Sarah heard some coughing. (that was in the same area that several other investigators had reportedly heard coughing) We encountered the sound of something being thrown on a few occasions. Mainly involving a clinking sound.

Our Ovilus said “Miss E” in the recreation room. We were trying to figure out if it was to do with Sarah, (a nickname she has) or the alphabet letters in the hall that spelled out the name Missy. We heard some loud bangs and walking sounds. Our K2 meters had some good solid hits, which is impressive in a building without electricity. Sadly, we did not get much video out of the building because… Yep, mysteriously fast battery drainage occurred!

We did a dowsing rod session in the room at the end of the hallway that had a card table. We had an interesting conversation with what we believed was a female spirit. At the end of the session, we all witnessed a white fluffy feathery little something floating. I have no idea what it was, but it was neat!

Going through the evidence, there seemed to be a lot going on at those locations!  Although I had seen several Facebook investigators talk about their incredible experiences, I was pretty skeptical to begin with, but now I think I understand! As I stated before, I have heard stories about nursing homes being haunted. For anyone curious, Pine Lawn and Sumner offer the perfect opportunity to explore that for yourself. Our main recommendation…  Bring Extra Batteries!

The only thing better than ghost hunting is reconnecting with friends. What would be better than meeting up with your long-lost friends? Well, that would be having a ghost hunting reunion!