Gather around the embalming table and listen to some scary stories about the former Walker Funeral Home in Toledo, Ohio. All of these were sent to me directly, in many cases by former employees at the funeral home or the ambulance company, and they are reproduced below with only a few minor adjustments for spelling and punctuation. I find all of the accounts presented here to be very convincing, but how much you believe is entirely up to you.


The Other Occupants

One building is said to be haunted by the ghost of a man who had a heart attack while working there for the Walker Funeral Home. We called the ghost Gino for the man's first name. While stationed there at night we heard many footsteps above us where his office once was. One time we had to leave the building all together because we heard what sounded like a basketball dribbling upstairs that got stronger and louder until the point that paint from the ceiling began falling on us. One female that worked there woke me up screaming one night saying she felt someone touch her and then saw an older fat guy run for the stairs. This was enough to get me to leave again, and this is only one of the buildings.

The adjacent building was the place of many more hauntings that I heard of. My own experience is only one that kept recurring. Most nights as we were returning to quarters from a run, my partner and I would scope the parking lot for vagrants or people that shouldn't be there before we opened the bay doors. While looking on more than one occasion, we would see a light on in the adjacent building on the top floor. There should have been no lights on. Figuring someone had gotten inside, we would watch the building for more lights. No other lights ever came on, but on every occasion a young woman in a dress would come to the window and stare at us. One night, after seeing the figure, we got brave and called some law enforcement friends from the area to help us search the building. We went to the room that had the light on expecting to find a vagrant camped out there. The only thing we found was a room that had untouched dust on the floor and no light bulbs in the sockets. We got the willies and split. We never went back into that building at night.


The Owner's Ghost

I was just looking at your site and found your write up on the Walker Building. I used to work in that building for the ambulance company in the early 80s and there was a lot of spirit activity at that time. There were victims of a plane crash brought there in the late 60s or the early 70s that still hung out in the basement and would knock things off the wall, open and close doors, or just take a walk. The plane crashed in the fog and a basketball team from a university was on board. I think it was from either West Virginia or Kentucky. The wife of the former owner of the ambulance company told me who the spirits were. She was there the night they were brought in. [NOTE: See below.]

After the former owner (Gene Spradling) passed away he was also seen. I was visiting a friend there one night and Gene walked right through the hallway; my (ex) husband and I both saw it.

I worked there for two years and have several stories of spirit encounters while I was there--most of them harmless, some verging on frightening.


Plane Crash Bodies

I worked there from '82 to '84 and it was probably the Marshall football team; I don't remember clearly. It has been 20 years since I heard the story last. What Shirley told me was the plane had crashed in the fog and their funeral home was used as a "morgue" for the night, and she saw or heard one of the players get up and walk around the funeral home. She was there by herself and got so scared she called her husband to come home. He was out in the ambulance doing runs, and didn't come home because he was too busy.

When I worked there it was the one of 2 funeral homes they owned and was still used to do funerals the embalming was done at the location on Talmadge Road. (That one has been torn down and now has a restaurant on the site.) The bodies were then brought over to the Monroe Street location. It was just about the time I left that they stopped using it for funerals. Our sleeping quarters at that time were in the basement (they later moved us to the house next door upstairs) and that was one place that I know for sure that at least one if not two spirits were located. I could never sleep while I worked there overnight; they bugged the shit out of me. So most the time I stayed awake in the dispatch office and they could be heard opening doors and walking around.

I also worked night dispatch sometimes and I had to stay awake. One time the city map came flying off the wall--a full-sized map like they have in schools--and no one was near it or even in the room.

You asked about the closet...there was one closet that I would try never to go into, but it was where we kept some supplies. I'm not really sure why but there was something in there. It was one by the bathroom. There were always bizarre things being found somewhere in that place. I did know the original owner when I worked there and he was kind of bizarre himself, so it's not surprising. And I'm sure he did some things that weren't exactly respectful. Anything-for-a-buck kinda guy.

NOTE: She's referring to the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Crash of October 29, 1960; click here to read about it.


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