In search of a Haunting
 

The Paranormal and Ghost Society leader guides a reporter on a late-night hunt.

 
Elaine Aradillas | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted November 1, 2006

It had all the makings of a horror flick: two young women, alone in a car late at night on an unpaved road in the middle of nowhere, lighted by an orange-hued crescent moon hanging low on the horizon. Oh, and we were meeting two strangers at a cemetery.
 
I don't know what I was thinking when I agreed to tag along with paranormal investigator Rick Rowe, who planned to visit old Osceola County cemeteries and a Kissimmee haunt known for its legend of a "headless horseman."

Rowe heads up the Paranormal and Ghost Society, a group he started about five years ago when he was living in Buffalo, N.Y. Unlike the rest of us who feared the bogeyman underneath our bed, Rowe said he saw him walk into his closet when he was a child.
 
"The more you see, the more you want to do," Rowe said Saturday night. "For me, this is an adventure."
 
I coerced a fellow journalist to come along just in case things got too weird.
 
Call me paranoid, but I couldn't help wearing a cross around my neck. My friend carried one in her pocket, too. Just in case.
 
It took 30 minutes to find the isolated spot, south of Orlando International Airport. We parked on the side of the road and waited for our guide. Truth be told, waiting was the scariest part of the evening.
 
"How is it that the idea of embedding myself and reporting from the front lines of Iraq doesn't scare me, but sitting outside a cemetery has me freaked out?" I asked.
 
Logical explanations began calming us down, right about the same time Rowe and another investigator named Jason Wolfe rolled up in a black sport utility vehicle about 11 p.m.
 
We followed Rowe and Wolfe down an unpaved path to the East Lake Cemetery, formerly known as Boggy Creek and Mount Carmel cemeteries.
 
St. Cloud historian Bob Fisk said it is a family-owned cemetery. Confederate and World War I veterans are buried there.
 
"It goes back into the 1800s, but there's some recent burials," he said. "There's still some room there."
 
Our guides were thorough. No headstone went unturned, so to speak. Rowe took photos of everything -- markers, trees, the ground. What looked like empty space turned into smoky images on his digital camera screen.
 
"Do you see the face?" he asked.
 
I did, and that was enough for me.
 
"There's someone standing next to us," Rowe said moments later.
 
All I could see was the silhouette of a moss-covered tree.
 
I felt as if I shouldn't have been there, stirring up spirits or whatever was trying to rest in peace.
 
I respect people, even if they're dead. My friend and I decided to leave, though the investigators were just getting started. They traipsed through about a half-dozen cemeteries and even hiked through brush to check out the so-called Dead Man's Oak, near Shingle Creek, where the legend of a headless horseman arose hundreds of years ago after a Spaniard was beheaded for stealing some bread.
 
"We got a lot of different ghost activity," Rowe said of his all-night excursion.
 
Rowe said he wants to debunk myths and legends by uncovering the mysteries for himself. But the more he investigates, he says, the more he believes.
 
"There is a certain rush we get," he said. "When something really happens, it's amazing."