The walls of Walker Hall dormitory are going bump in the night, and students have taken notice.
Students have made claims of a ghost or multiple ghosts in Walker Hall. Claims include loud banging noises, paranormal “vibes” and objects moving independently. Students have said in person and online that they think the dorm is haunted.
Tomi Vetter, piano performance sophomore and Walker Hall resident assistant, said she believes the ghost stories.
“Her name is ‘Elsie.’ She has good intentions. She’s not evil or anything like that,” Vetter said. “There’s a few other ghosts that probably linger there as well.”
Vetter also said she thinks the ghost of May Walker, for whom the hall is named, haunts the dorm. She said Walker’s portrait was taken from the dormitory and found in United Methodist Hall.
“We put it down in the storage area and, a couple days after that, it went missing. Then it appeared in the head office,” Vetter said. “We really do think that she’s also there too.”
Students say they have encountered a ghost in Walker Hall. Abigail Munday, acting sophomore, said she had an experience last year while lying alone in bed in the dorm.
“I just felt this overwhelming presence in the room, like I was not alone,” Munday said. “It was really scary. I’ve experienced sleep paralysis before, but I was wide awake. I couldn’t sleep. I was paralyzed with fear. It wanted me to know that it was there and that it was their space.”
Ginger Harris, acting sophomore and Munday’s former roommate, said she agrees.
“The third floor of Walker Hall is absolutely haunted,” Harris said. “She’s real. I know that for a fact.”
Some students repeat the legend that the ghost of Walker Hall died by falling through or jumping out of a window. Some students even said they have spoken with her directly.
“Her name was ‘Elsie,’” said Kayleigh Adams, acting freshman. “It was in, like, the ‘70s, she apparently fell off. No one’s really sure if she was pushed or if she fell off.”
Adams’s aunt is a shaman and made her a pendulum which Adams said allows her to speak to paranormal apparitions. Adams said she and her roommate, Meredith England, acting freshman, used it to invite Elsie into their home and ask for her to make herself known. Adams said, when England moved by their whiteboard, it flew from the wall. Adams said they invited Elsie to do it again and she did.
“It happened the same exact way, the same exact time that she passed it,” Adams said.
Adams said, after experiencing further interaction with Elsie, they spoke to her with the pendulum again.
“From the questions I’ve asked her, she seems pretty chill,” Adams said. “It’s like her sense of humor. She wants to mess with people.”
Christina Wolf, archivist and special collections librarian at Dulaney-Browne Library, said she does not believe in the ghost. She also said there’s no known record of anyone dying in Walker Hall.
“No one’s ever died on campus, as far as I know,” Wolf said. “We haven’t been able to figure out where the rumor came from or to substantiate any actual details about the story.”
Wolf said the story is old, as did Shawn Hudson, alumnus and columnist for The Campus in 1997. Hudson wrote a column entitled “The Y Files” in which he examined rumors of a ghost in Walker Hall.
Shannon Gilland Lemmons, accounting alumna, said in Fall 1989 she was pushed down on her bed in Walker Hall. She was the only person in the room, but she said she felt hands and an extreme amount of force.
The origins of the ghost story are unknown, but Alumna Devin Murphy wrote in a 2011 essay that she believed the story to be a communal coping mechanism. She wrote that Elsie is allegedly a dancer who failed in weigh-ins, could not graduate and killed herself.
“This legend was probably made up because it was a way that OCU students were able to express their fears of failing weigh-ins or not being able to graduate,” Murphy wrote in the essay. “As long as these stressors stay on this campus, this legend will keep being passed on from year to year.”
Three Walker Hall RAs declined to comment, as did LaVetra Stevenson, residence hall director of Walker Hall.
The ghost of walker hall is definitely real, my 2 roommates and sweet mates were talking about it today, random things in our dorm will he moved pictures flipped and strange noises. the first week we were sure to always lock the door and we would all come back from cheer practice in the morning and it’d be wide open.
Your tips are always on point.