My name is Drew, and in late August in 1966, two friends of mine Dan and Tom asked me to go with them to a party on the beach at Lake Michigan. I was about 15 years old at that time. Ghost stories were being told around the campfire by almost everyone their, most of which I had already heard.

        As the night went on a young girl about 17 years old started telling a story about a family of Doctor's with the last name of Blood. It was out on Round Lake Rd near Dewitt, MI, about 100 miles from the beach party, but only 20 miles from my home in Lansing. The Bloods had a lot of land where the whole family lived. The most interesting part was that they had a private graveyard on the property and that the whole area was haunted.  She said that she saw gravestones that dated back to1800.
       
        On their prom night she and some of her friends decided to go out to the Cemetery.  They looked around at the headstones for a while. As it started to get dark the fog hung thick, and a full moon was rising so they started trying to scare each other. Then the young girls' prom date decided to go into Dr. Blood's house because he thought no one lived there any longer. They waited about an hour or so, and when he didn't return they got scared and headed for the Dewitt police department. When they went in to tell the police, the officer on duty said "don't you kids know any better, old Dr. Blood lives out there and he doesn't like anyone trespassing on his property". He also went onto say that he thought "Dr. Blood was harmless and he's in his 80's" so, he didn't think there would be any problem.  They all returned to the property, but to everyone's shock when they got back, the whole house were ablaze.  The fire department was called, but in vane, because the house burnt to the ground.  The next day there was a search party, but the only thing that was found in the rubble were the remains of the young man that had gone into the house the night before. The paper reported that his hands and feet had been bound. Dr. Blood's remains were never found. 

        One of the searchers that afternoon found a freshly dug grave, when they unearthed it, a pine coffin was found. Upon opening it, they found the body of Mrs. Blood. She was dressed in a red gown, with her arms; legs and head cut off. There had been no coroner's report of a body being buried there, or any police report of any murder.

        The girl at the campfire that night said that the ghost of Dr Blood; to this day roams the cemetery at night, with a shotgun in one hand, and an ax in the other.

That night was the last time I ever heard or saw the young girl who first told me about Blood Cemetery, but it wouldn't be my last experience with the Blood family.


My Story


After I returned from Lake Michigan, I told some of my friends the story I had heard, some told me there own stories, about how they had been scared out at the cemetery. Mark said he had seen a ghost of an old man wandering the graveyard as if he was lost.  Another friend said that he saw an apparition of an elderly man carrying a body and it appeared to be headless and arm less.

Another 2 years would go by, before I got the nerve to visit this so-called haunted Cemetery. You see I never quite believed these "ghost stories", until I saw the most BLOOD CHILLING things myself.

The first time I went there was with Dan and JC.  It was a steamy hot July night. The moon was big and full and it lit up the night sky as if it were daylight, the fog was drifting over the Cemetery as it rolled in from the lake. The feeling in the air was electrifying.

At the entrance to the Cemetery were two old rusted iron gates, and hanging above was a sign saying Blood Cemetery. By the light of the moon you could see the old grave stones. Some had been toppled over, and some were broken.  The weeds were about knee high. There was a smell of jasmine in the air.

After looking around for a few minutes, I decided to scare the two of them. I had taken one of my mother's old white nightgowns and I hung it from a fence post when I was sure they weren't looking. There was a slight breeze in the air that night and I thought it would look like it was floating in the breeze. Just as I was about to put my plan into action, I heard JC scream. Dan and I went running over, he told us that he had seen a woman's figure in a long red gown. He said that she appeared to be headless and armless, and was coming right toward him, when she disappeared into thin air.  I thought that he had seen the gown I had hung on the post. I took Dan and JC over to see where I had hung the old nightgown, and surely what JC had saw was my little joke, but when we got there the gown was gone.

Feeling a little spooked from what JC had thought he'd seen we started our way out of the Cemetery to leave. On our way out I said to Dan, who was quit a bit taller that me, pull the sign down, and we'll take it home with us.

Our night at Blood Cemetery was pretty uneventful, except for the woman in the red gown. We went back to Dan's farmhouse, where he lived with his Mom, Dad, 2 brothers, and 3 sisters.  It was late when we got there, so the 3 of us went to bed, after putting the sign on top of Dan's dresser. The next morning when we got up we had breakfast and got cleaned up, Dan told his father about the sign we took the night before. With instant anger, his father demanded to see the sign. But this task proved not to be so easy, because when we went to the bedroom to get it, IT WAS GONE. Dan questioned his brothers and sisters, and they all swore they hadn't seen it, let alone take it.

After a couple of day's, of looking we were sure that Dan's brothers and sister's had nothing to do with the missing sign. We drove back out to Round Lake. When we got to the Cemetery, there it was hanging above the old rusty gates was the sign we had taken two nights before, looking like it had never been disturbed.



Several more years had gone by, when I ran into some friends at a restaurant, on Halloween night. They talked me into going out there again. (After all it was HALLOWEEN) When we got there the weeds were about chest high and the fences were falling down. One of the guys in the group called us over; he was shining his flashlight on a headstone. We couldn't believe what we were seeing. There lying over the grave was a large piece of glass about 6 feet long, and about 2 feet deep, incased in it were a dozen long stem roses imbedded in the center.

Just about that time we heard a shotgun blast. We ran back to our vehicles, and the right side of Dan's car had been shot, and the windows had been shattered. Needless to say we got the hell out of there. With people seeing ghosts, hearing things, and the car being shot up. I swore I would NEVER go back out there again. But I've learned you should (NEVER SAY, NEVER.)

When I was about 26 or 27 years old, I was riding with some motorcycle enthusiasts. It was a beautiful June day; the skies were blue and clear. It was hot, but who cares when you're on your bike. My girl friend Chris rode with me on the back of my bike. She had heard so many stories about the Blood family, she decided to bring a camera with her. We looked around at the rundown graveyard, and Chris was taking pictures, after a few hours we decided to leave, and all of us started down Round Lake Rd. We were about 150 yards from the Cemetery and Chris and I hit a snapping turtle. The bike went out of control and we crashed into a tree. I suffered only minor injuries, but Chris had broken her back, and was paralyzed from the waist down. She was able to walk again after a couple of years, with the aid of crutches. (The curse of Blood Cemetery had struck again)

I've since heard lots of stories since our terrible accident.
In 1989, 2 high school girls were out to have some fun on Halloween night. The news reported that their car went out of control about a 1/4 of a mile from the Cemetery. Their car plunged into Round Lake and they (both drowned.)

The County has now put up hurricane fence around the Cemetery, with razor wire strung along the top.
 
And I've learned that at least 4 or 5 Blood son's from each generation have become Doctor's for the last 150 years.

And a couple of years ago, Lansing named one of their Halloween haunted house's after Blood Cemetery.

If you're ever out on Round Lake Rd, and you see a full moon rising, DON'T visit Blood Cemetery. 

Drew K.