While the ASUP attempts to balance simplicity with technology, sometimes the answer to a case has more to do with connecting the dots and all too often you have to have a birds-eye view to accomplish that task.

A case in point involved a case at a fraternity house. The original complaint from the house’s president concerned an apparition in the house of a young girl, usually on the second floor sleeping area, but also in the downstairs public parts of the house. The house was relatively new, had no history whatsoever to suggest who the little girl was and appeared to be transient in nature. An investigation following the normal course of action yielded little, but there was no doubt after first person interviews with witnesses, that she had been seen more than once.

While the Director of Research’s report gave no hints, the initial digging did find some odd occurrences on the campus that included a little girl. There was also a lengthy report on an old cemetery on the edge of the campus where it was said a child was often seen playing. Given that information, several members took to the library to seek out more information on their little girl and a team was dispatched to the cemetery.

As part of the ASUP’s routine, every site visited is plotted using GPS. In these three cases it was learned that between all three locations, all were in a straight line with one another. Today, a thick wooded area would make it impossible to traverse that line, but at the time when the cemetery was operational, the surrounding area was open fields. It was also learned that on the street where the fraternity now stands was once a church home for wayward girls and their offspring. At the other end of the straight line, through the library, you would be in the center of a central market for the area, next to a railroad spur. Suddenly the presence of the little girl was no longer a great mystery. Many of the cemetery markers only gave a number to the person interred; if it was a child they also said so.  Along our newly drawn line, the “Little Girl” could simply be traveling between two places she knew well; her home, the market and in between the place where she was laid to rest!

While we were unable to learn the child’s name, we are fairly confident, thanks in great part to GPS, who the girl was, where she lives, played and was put to rest… it was all within a few hundred yards of one another in her day, but out of sight in modern times, when either the site has disappeared or is blocked from view by tall trees that did not exist in her day.

Investigative Team with Sigma Chi Brothers

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