Brief Encounters with the Headless Woman of Lydia Mill: True Ghost Encounters and Strange Happenings

By Donnie W. Cooper

HAUNTED PLACES EXIST all over the world and are visited by ghostly spirits from time to time. Some of these spirits make one appearance and never appear again, but some keep coming back to the same place over and over. The small community of Lydia in Clinton, South Carolina, is considered by many to be haunted. Several apparitions have appeared over the years at Lydia, but the most popular is known as the headless woman. Stories have existed for well over a hundred years about people that have seen her. Groups of people have hunted her many times, but she has never appeared to more than two people at one time. She has always appeared at the time and place of her own choosing. One thing is sure: if she does appear to someone, it will be a totally unexpected visit.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 5, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465306562

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Headless Woman

Beginnings of a Haunting

IN 1896 A businessman in Clinton, South Carolina, founded Clinton Cotton Mills. The business prospered very well, and within a short amount of time plans were drawn up to have another plant built.

The site picked for the new plant was a large area of undeveloped land about two miles outside Clinton town. Owing to an unusual number of springs in it, the area was mostly marshy swamp land. These springs were actually the beginning of the Bush River. The Bush River rise already had a reputation of its own as being haunted by Indians’ and colonials’ spirits.

The construction began early in 1902. Shortly after work began a construction crew member died suddenly. With no known relatives to bear the cost of funeral, the mill owner took on the responsibility of paying all expenses of the burial.

Unlike a lot of businessmen, the mill owner was a kind man that always showed great concern for the welfare of all who worked for him, including construction crew workers.

Knowing that a place of burial would also be needed, he designated a small section on the southeast corner of the mill property as the Lydia Mill Cemetery for employees and their immediate family member.

No one else was buried there until late that year when something happened that prompted the kindhearted old businessman to agree to allow someone who wasn’t an employee or a construction crew member to be buried there

On that particular cold, rainy morning, a crew member arrived early to wait on a train that was due to arrive with building materials on it. As soon as he arrived, he noticed something on the other side of the tracks. Moving over to the tracks on the other side, he was shocked at the gruesome sight that was lying on the gravel next to the tracks.

The mangled body of a woman was lying in a pool of her own blood. The most horrible thing, was that her head was missing. Her head and neck had been brutally decapitated down to shoulder level.

Law enforcement officers were notified, and within a few minutes, the area was roped off and an investigation began.

There wasn’t any blood anywhere in the area, only where the body was lying. Dogs were brought in to try to pick up the scent of the killer, but were still unsuccessful after three attempts. They were never able to track any farther than where the body was lying.

They weighed things that could have happened against what might have happened and still came up with very few helpful facts.

A train came through that morning but never stopped. If she had been thrown from the train that hadn’t stopped, her body would have rolled and tumbled from the fall. Surely some blood and other evidence would have been left to verify such a claim. Her head was missing, and a thorough search of the entire area never produced her head. No blood drippings were ever found indicating that someone had walked away from the area with that severed head.

There was no evidence or weapon left at the scene and no means of determining her or her killer’s identity. It is possible that the foul deed was accomplished at another site and her body dropped off at the tracks, but there wasn’t any evidence to support that theory either.

With no tangible evidence or information at all to go on, it was highly probable that someone had been able to commit a perfect crime.

The case was listed as unsolvable due to lack of evidence.

Conclusion: Unidentified female victim murdered by unknown assailant or assailants. No clues, no evidence, no witnesses, no motive established.

From a Body to an Apparition

JOHN DELGADO, HIS mom, and his dad, Fonso, lived on the road beside the railroad tracks about two hundred yards from the new mill that was under construction.

When the landscaping crew for the new mill came in, instead of building a new road to the construction site and plant, they purchased rights to the old wagon trail that John’s family lived on. They didn’t take up all of the old wagon trail (Poplar Street), however, leaving John and his family a short stretch that led to their house—later to become the short end of Pine Street.

They did cut a road parallel to the railroad tracks (Sycamore Street) from the construction site to the front of their house for the construction crew members to unload building material from trains that stopped.

Even before the work on the mill started, John and his parents would sit on their porch many times and watch trains go by, but now they could also amuse themselves by all the activity going on at the mill site.

One morning when they went out on their porch to watch, they noticed something that seemed very strange and unusual going on at the railroad track

About two hundred yards away, a large group of spectators had gathered and were moving all around a large roped-off area.

Trains came by almost every day, and groups of men would gather to unload things, but a train wasn’t at the site this morning. A train did come through in the middle of the night, but it just kept going, never even slowing down.

John’s dad rose from his seat on the porch and started toward the crowd. He was just rising to join his dad when his dad held his hand up as a gesture for him to stay on the porch. He was begging his dad to let him go, but his words were falling on deaf ears.

He sat patiently on the porch and watched his dad mingle with the crowd, talk to one person for a moment, and then walk over to talk to someone else.

After what seemed like an eternity, he saw his dad slowly walking back in his direction. As his dad got closer and closer to him, he could see a sad expression on his dad’s face. After a while, his dad came back, walked past him, and went into the house without saying a word.

John stayed on the porch and watched as the crowd grew bigger and bigger.

Groups of men started moving off in many different directions with one group coming in his direction. When the group got close enough, John inquired as to what had happened.

John listened intensely as they began describing the horrible thing that had happened. Apparently a young lady had been brutally murdered and beheaded, and her mutilated body was found beside the tracks. Nobody could possibly know her name or where she came from because the lady’s head was missing.

John couldn’t stand it any longer. He was thirteen years old, and even though his dad didn’t agree, he felt that he was old enough to see what had happened for himself. Lots of boys were younger than he, and they were working with the construction crew and were mingling with the crowd.

His dad wouldn’t approve, so he came up with a plan to get down to the site.

His dad was sitting at the kitchen table when he entered the house. He made it a point to let his dad see him get his fishing pole and go out the door. Knowing he