Ghost hunters investigate Indiana courthouse

The Chicago Tribune, the Northwest Indiana Times, and the Indiana Post-Tribune cover ghost hunters as they investigate the haunting. From the Tribune:

VALPARAISO, Ind. -- Maintenance workers have sworn for years that the Porter County Courthouse is haunted. Sometimes they have heard voices yelling their names. Chairs inexplicably moved in dark courtrooms at night. The elevator operates unprompted some evenings. And some swear they have seen a shadowy, ghoulish figure wearing a black top hat. So Friday night, at the urging of the county attorney and with permission of the County Commission, volunteer paranormalists combed the aged courthouse looking for signs of the netherworld. "Someone is in here resisting us," said Julie Bodnar, a self-described clairvoyant, standing in a courtroom and feeling what she described as spiritual oppression. "I can feel the anger."

The Times carries more details:

The small group traipsed slowly up each flight of stairs, Bodnar in the lead. Its first stop was a second-floor courtroom. Leaving the lights out, Ghost Trackers warned one another before triggering their camera with a "flash" announcement. Gliding slowly through the dark, snapping flash photos, alerting one another to blips on their electromagnetic field microphones that there was "something" in the room with them. McDowell spoke a litany of questions: "Tell us your name," "How long have you been here?" "Is there someone you loved or cared about that was sentenced here?" On the third-floor landing, Bodnar stopped and retraced her steps. "Something happened here, a fight or something," she told the others. "It started here and went down the stairs, a very bad struggle."

And from the Post-Tribune:

In Superior Court 4, ghost hunters said they felt "a hum" and "a presence," though technical difficulties occurred when a digital camera battery died. In that same room, Julia Bodner said she felt dizziness.

In Circuit Court, near the witness stand, Bodner said she felt a presence she described as "cold movement." "Something just ran across here," she said.