Capitol Ghost Stories

Standing in the well-lit hallway outside the Governor’s office, you wouldn’t necessarily think that the State Capitol has a scary past. The friendly Highway Patrol officers pose for photos with visitors and the county displays offer cheerful reminders of the diversity of California’s people and places.

There is also a less known history of murders and hauntings. Being the week of Halloween, it seemed like a good time to look back.

One story close to home is that of Reuben Clark, the architect who designed the State Capitol. A series of delays in the construction led to mounting costs and pressure on Clark, which eventually drove him insane. He died at the Stockton Insane Asylum in 1866, never having recovered from his time at the Capitol. State Senator Jehu Berry, while helping write the current California State Constitution, was “taken with a mania” and confined at Stockton for “his own and the public safety.”

Almost 4,500 people were eventually buried in the Stockton Asylum‘s cemetery, of which only 1,619 were moved when the new cemetery opened. That means that there may still be nearly 3,000 bodies beneath the lake at CSU Stanislaus at Stockton (including Mr. Clark). Well, less than 3,000 since bodies are occasionally found.
[See also: Students wary of ghost at former Stockton Developmental Center]

On April 14, 1927, lobbyist Harry Hill shot and killed Capitol staffer Marybelle Wallace in a murder-suicide just outside of the elevators on the fourth floor of the State Capitol (historic side). Although initially friendly, Wallace had started avoiding Hill after he suddenly proposed to her. She planned to flee Sacramento to escape Hill, but on what was to be her last day at the Capitol, he found and shot her when she again refused his advances. The first person to arrive at the murder scene was Senate Minute Clerk Harold J. Powers (who would later serve as Senate President pro Tem and Lieutenant Governor). Wallace is buried at Calvary Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Coincidentally, the day that Wallace had planned to escape (April 15th) was the 67th anniversary of another murder at the State Capitol. On April 15th, 1860, Assemblyman John C. Bell was stabbed to death on the Assembly Floor by a colleague during a fight over a redistricting bill.

Outside of the Capitol, truck driver Mike Bowers committed suicide by crashing his fully-loaded semi-truck into the south side of the Capitol on January 16th, 2001. The crash caused millions of dollars in damage and, together with the 9/11 attacks, led to the increased security presence at the Capitol today.

There was also the Ghost of Assemblyman Chalmers, an 1870s Assemblyman who died of starvation after his wife chained him to a wall in their basement. For several decades, this building (the Vineyard House in Coloma) has reportedly been haunted by the ghost of Chalmers. There were the murder victims of the State Legislature, most notably John Yule and Lloyd Magruder (who was murdered in his sleep by men he had hired to protect himself).

There was also Assemblyman Barnabas Collins of Butte County, whose name was used for the main character (a vampire) in the TV show and horror-comedy movie “Dark Shadows” (released in 2012). From all indications, the grave was undisturbed and he remains in the ground.

Ghost stories and the paranormal aren’t only limited to the Legislature. On May 28, 1934, Virginia Johnson, the daughter of State Treasurer Charles G. Johnson, was found soaked in kerosene and set on fire in a garage a few blocks from their home in Sacramento. Sacramento police determined that Virginia’s death was a suicide, although her father told newspapers that convinced that she had been hunted down and killed by a “murderous fiend”.

In 2009, “paranormal investigator” Nancy Bradley visited the Capitol and reported on her findings. Even more recently, in 2013, the unruly ghost of a certain former legislator appeared on Twitter, dispensing wisecracks and occasional advice like

.@mikegatto In case your Senate race doesn’t work out, wanna takeover the @UnrulyUnruh account? https://t.co/YXm106NjAI

— Unruly Unruh (@UnrulyUnruh) September 11, 2015

and

This is why I had a strict “no Facebook” policy when I was Speaker. #oops https://t.co/H21Xl98NOn

— Unruly Unruh (@UnrulyUnruh) June 15, 2015

So what’s the weirdest thing you’ve seen at the Capitol?