5 Ghost Attacks That Proved Deadly

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Ghost attacks do not usually result in death. However, there are cases that allege some paranormal entities can kill.

5 – Nigerian Brothel Poltergeist

On September the 28th 2016, a popular brothel in Umuahia, Nigeria called 50-50 was purportedly plagued by a violent spirit that killed two people and left six others unconscious.

According to local reports, terrified residents ran from the building around 8am screaming “Ghost, ghost, ghost!”

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The site of some very disturbing paranormal activity, 50-50 is a bar and brothel located in Umuahia, Nigeria.  (Image source)

Two bodies, one male, one female, were recovered by police from the building. The six others who were found unconscious included the manager of the brothel. The unconscious were all found in different rooms from each other.

Later, some of the survivors would claim that they had been attacked by a invisible hands. One of women who survived the attack, revealed in a later interview that she had no idea how she ended up in the hospital. Speaking to the New Telegraph, she said:

“Honestly, I cannot remember what happened.  All I can tell you is that I slept in my room as usual. I was alone that night […] Then I saw myself here in the hospital.”1

She asserted that she was not under the influence of alcohol on the night of the incident.

Just few weeks before the ghostly attack, several prostitutes who stayed at the brothel were forced to leave after being hit by unseen hands, which had left one of the women unconscious. Prior to that there had been reports of beds being lifted into the air whilst occupied by a malevolent entity.2

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After the alleged attack, crowds gathered on Uyo Street. (Image source)
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According to Nigeria’s Daily Sun newspaper, local people attribute the violent happenings at the brothel to renovation work that was carried out on the land.Before the current owner of the brothel bought the property, the building was little more than a mud hut. According to a local resident, the owner demolished the mud house and within a short space of time:

“She reconstructed it into a one storey building. It was since the building was reconstructed that we started hearing of ghosts’ attacks. The first time we heard of ghosts’ attacks, most of the prostitutes packed out due to fear, while others stayed behind.”3

With such a growing history of spiritual attacks, this may not be the last time that 50-50 receives a visit from the other side.

4 – The Curse of Carl Pruitt

The following is a tale which has evolved into something of a dark legend.

From the late 1930s to the 1950s a small town in Pulaski County, Kentucky was allegedly plagued by the malicious spirit of Carl Pruitt.

He had died in June of 1938. A carpenter by day, Pruitt returned home from work to discover his wife in the arms of another man. Upon discovering her infidelity, in a moment of rage, Pruitt grabbed and rung his wife’s neck with it until she lay dead on the ground.

Instantly remorseful, Pruitt committed suicide.

The family refused to allow him buried next to his slain wife. So, he was buried – alone and disgraced – in the town next to where he had lived. From there began a series of horrific deaths that could only be linked back to Carl’s curse.

One day a visitor to his grave noticed peculiar circular shadows forming on the surface of the headstone. It looked like a chain was etched into the stone.

Before too long, Pruitt’s gravesite attracted many with a morbid sense of curiosity. One young boy by the name of James Collins decided to test these strange shadows by throwing a few rocks at the tombstone. On his way home, the unfortunate child slipped from his bicycle and, by some incredible circumstance, became tangled in its chain and was strangled to death.

The boy’s mother was distraught. In a fit of anger and despair, she destroyed Pruitt’s tombstone with an axe. Soon afterwards she was found dead: the clothing line she was using to dry her clothes wound tightly around her neck.

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Days later, the tombstone was discovered wholly intact – in spite of the damage inflicted upon it by both James and his mother.

After this tragedy, at least two more people found themselves the victims of Pruitt’s ghostly vengeance. One, a farmer, would be found with the reins of his horse-drawn carriage around his neck after taking a few pistol shots at the tombstone. The other, a police officer, died after taking photographs of gravesite. He had supposedly joked about the ghost and his curse. On the drive home from the cemetery, he crashed his car into a fence; the metal chain which linked two of the posts together all but decapitated the officer.

It was not until the 1950s, when a strip mining company moved the cemetery and all the bodies to an undisclosed location, that Carl Pruitt’s spirit finally stopped killing.

3 – ‘The Hole’ of ‘Hellcatraz’

Between the years 1933 and 1963, Alcatraz island, lying off San Francisco bay, operated as one of America’s most notorious federal prisons. Its conditions were so dreadful that it received the appellation ‘Hellcatraz’… the nightmarish reality of all who were unfortunate or guilty enough to have served their time there.

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An aerial view of the Warden’s house and the Alcatraz lighthouse, c. 1940s-1950s (Photo credit: U.S. National Park Services)

The guards selected to work at the prison were considered ‘iron men’ by the warden and were known for their cruelty. Beatings were a regular occurrence. Anything, even something as minor as speaking at the wrong time, would result in brutality. It is hardly surprising then, that when anyone tried to escape, the guards would shoot – to kill. Yet, their most terrifying device of torture was ‘The Hole’. This was a cell that lacked most amenities, even light. Prisoners would be thrown inside and left in complete isolation for days at a time.

According to some prisoners, however, there lived a darkness in that cell that went beyond sensory deprivation. The Hole was believed to be plagued by malicious spirits. One of these phantoms was particularly notorious; it was known as ‘The Thing’.

In 1940, one prisoner was locked in the Hole for the night. It is reported that all throughout the evening his screams were heard by everyone in the prison. However, there was something different about his cries. These were not the usual sounds of a man in solitary confinement. He yelled, wailed, shrieked as though in agony. He cried out that something with red, glowing eyes was with him in the Hole. The guards purposefully ignored him.

The following morning, they found his dead body.

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His death-laden eyes bulged out from his head. Fear was etched across his bloated, purple face. His neck was lined with strange bruising marks.

The medical examiner determined that he had died of strangulation, for the marks on his neck had not been self-inflicted. Even stranger still, was that whilst his corpse was being examined, he had allegedly been witnessed at morning roll call… after which, he vanished into thin air.4

2 – Thai Widow Ghost

In early 2013, the popular silk villageof Tha Sawang in Thailand reported to have been tormented a vicious spirit. She was known as the widow ghost.

The entity claimed the lives of ten young men. They all died in their prime, and with no warning of any prior health complaints. Their deaths were sudden; some even died whilst they were walking.

The official cause of death is respiratory failure. However, what caused this is a mystery.

It was when the plague apparently started to affect other nearby towns, such as Chom Phra and Tha Tum, that a medium came forward. She stated that the widow ghost would not stop until she had taken more lives, and that all young men were in danger, especially those families with only one son. The only way to prevent this, she claimed, was to hang a red shirt outside of your home.

This was a dangerous move for anyone to make in Thailand, for red shirts had been the symbol of a coup staged by the Thai Army in September of 2006. The red-shirt group, more formally known as the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD), opposed the yellow-shirt People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) in the lead up to coup. As such, anyone caught hanging a red shirt outside of their home could be thought of as a political radical.

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Red shirts are believed to repel the murderous ‘widow ghost’, and were hung outside of homes in the Thai village. (Image source)

In spite of this, most people in the area hung red shirts outside of their homes. Fear of the murderous widow ghost, it seems, was greater than the fear of political repercussions.

When interviewed by a reporter for the Bangkok Post, a 61-year-old villager had this to say:

“The reason I hang a red shirt is not because of my political views, but it’s because I am worried for my nephew’s safety. I don’t necessarily believe in the story but taking some precaution doesn’t hurt.”5

1 – Gaurav Tiwari

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Gaurav Tiwari, pictured before his sudden death at the age of 31. (Image by Cryptscript02 via Wikipedia)

Gaurav Tiwari was one of India’s foremost paranormal investigators.

Having entered the field after sharing a house with a poltergeist whilst training to be a commercial pilot in America, Tiwari was revered for scientific method and his efforts at educating people about paranormal awareness. His interest and ability eventually led him to found the Indian Paranormal Society.

On the 7th of July 2016, Tiwari would conduct his last ever paranormal investigation. Just a few hours after returning from an allegedly haunted house, he passed away.

Tiwari’s death has been shrouded in mystery ever since his body was discovered with a thin black line around his neck.

The initial official explanation was suicide. Yet, without a plausible motive and a concurring medical report, the case was reclassified as a homicide. Certainly, in suicide cases where death is by hanging, the trachea invariably ruptures. In the case of Tiwari, the black line around his neck had done no such damage.

In the months that have followed his sudden death, some have speculated that a vengeful spirit attacked and killed Tiwari. Strange, dark marks around the neck have been cited as a classic sign of such an attack.

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What makes this case all the more mysterious is that, according to the Times of India, Tiwari had confided in his wife only a month prior to his death that “a negative force was pulling him towards it. ” 6

Gaurav Tiwari believed that most paranormal experiences are psychological, but that there is that one to two percent that is genuine. Could he have found out that he was all too right, and in doing so, have discovered that some paranormal forces have the power to cause us real harm, or even kill us?

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About Laura Rowton 82 Articles
Laura Rowton is a filmmaker and paranormal researcher. In 2019, she released her debut feature documentary on life after death, "In Search of the Dead", which she co-produced with her husband, Erik. Follow her on Instagram for more.