Jenny Beckett’s Ghost

Whilst travelling late one night by car, the investigators spot a shadowy figure by the side of the road as it enters a wood. A young woman paces backwards and forwards and looking in their direction. She seems to be wearing inappropriate clothing for the weather. Should the investigators stop to help, the young woman vanishes before their eyes.

If the investigators are in such a rush that they drive right past, at the last moment the woman steps in front of the car, seemingly unaware. There is no impact, no crash, no body bouncing across the windscreen. When the investigators’ skid to a halt they find no body, nor any evidence of one.

Instead, all they find is a small stone dedicated to the memory of Jenny Beckett sitting in the verge.

Further investigation reveals that Jenny Beckett was murdered at the roadside on the night of June 21st, 1826. The killer, Arthur Langton, was caught and hung, but reports of Jenny’s ghost soon became common. A local gypsy pronounced that unless a special inscribed stone was set to remember her death, then Jenny would continue to haunt that stretch of road.

Once the stone was put in place, the ghost vanished. The stone was blessed by the gypsy and inscribed thus: “To the memory of Jenny Backett, that her soul may rest in peace and she need wander no more”.

Now, however, it seems that Jenny Beckett is haunting the road once more, and it is not long before she causes a fatal accident.

Possibilities

1 Recently, road repairs have been carried out, and the road widened. The stone was taken up during the repairs and then replaced. Unfortunately, to be truly effective it needs to be blessed by a gypsy again.

2 Jenny’s ghost is waiting still for the man she was meant to meet at that spot – Thomas Longstock, her sweetheart. Jenny’s ghost appears sporadically in the area of her death and always around the time of the murder.

The gypsy was only partly right about the stone, which in itself is not enough to lay the ghost to rest. That can only be done by placing something that belonged to Thomas Longstock beneath the stone, no easy task considering he’s been dead for many years.

3 Michael L. Withers is the great-grandson of the man hanged for Jenny’s murder. His family has always maintained that Arthur did not commit the crime, but the Langton family were forced to leave the area after the hanging. Michael was always an impressionable boy and his grandmother’s stories have sent him to the scene of the crime.

© Lynne Wilson