Mystery in the Hampton House

My husband had an unexpected promotion to the Pentagon leaving me in Hampton with the children in school and the house to sell. The first few weeks went well as expected. Then a strange thing began to happen although it started so innocently.

One afternoon about 5 PM a phone call which was a wrong number. The woman had asked to speak to George. The following afternoon she called again and we went thought the same dialog. We checked the number and she was dialing our number. Still, why would I think anything of this? Just a mistake on her part, right?

I couldn't have been more wrong. Only a few days went by before the same woman would call AGAIN. This time, she took a different tone when I asked her why she was calling back. She became rude, irritated and demanding,"I KNOW he is there and you tell him to come to the phone and talk to me.

""Look, I don't know what more I can tell you but George doesn't live here. What's your problem?"

"You're lying, you tell him I know he is there....." she insisted.

"Sorry, I don't even know a George. He gave you the wrong number." and hung up.

The phone rang right back and she told me not to hang up on her and repeated "I know he is there WITH YOU....."

"I don't know why you can't understand there isn't a George living here, so please don't call again, " I told strongly informed her.

Now I was irritated and being alone with the children, it sort of unnerved me a little too, to have a confrontation of sorts with a stranger, but no calls came in for a full week. That was good, however, when the next call came, it set me reeling.

This next call she came on strongly. Her words were quick and to the point. She said she was calling to tell me she knew where I live and that if George didn't call her, she was coming over and would kill me when I answered the door.

A detective responded to my official complaint by coming to the house, which they do when a death threat has been made. I explained to him I was fairly sure she didn't know who I was or where I lived and/but I can't imagine why she would continue calling.

We discussed a phone tracer I agreed to immediately. On my part I had to agree to bring charges when the person was located AND I could tell NO ONE at all that the phone was tapped for a trace. Not even my husband.

They put the tracer on the phone immediately. I was to keep records of all calls to pin point a call from this wacky woman.

Interestingly, she stopped calling. Two full weeks went by. I kept my phone log. Nothing happened. How did she know, I thought? It was sort of embarrassing to me. I kept thinking...HOW DID SHE KNOW NOT to call? That truly puzzled and concerned me.

The house sold and now a move out date was imminent. I called and talked with the detective. It was decided the tracer would be removed the day before we left the house.

The last night we were to be in the Hampton House was a night to remember. My husband was there, of course. Everything was in order. The tracer was off the phone and the movers would be there at 8 AM...and the phone to be disconnected and we would leave the next day. We would be off to your next adventure. We had all gone to bed that night and all was quite.

It was almost midnight when the ringing phone broke the silent darkness of the our pretty little Hampton house. I reach for it in the dark.saying 'hello'....I was greeted by the unforgettable voice of the mystery woman caller.

This time, she was different. She had a soft sadness to her voice as she said softly, "Mrs (real name)",
I bolted upright ~ She had called me by my NAME My heart seem to skip...as now I knew she really KNEW who she was talking to all this time.
She continues, "I know George is there with you tonight," she was calm and sounded so, so sad. "Would you please tell him that if he won't talk to me, I am going to put my head in the oven and end it all."

I was sitting up hand over heart...my mind racing. SHE KNEW MY NAME...SHE DID KNOW WHERE I LIVED....I had truly been in the wake of a psycho. "Who are you?" was all I could think to say.

In the saddest tone that made me believe her ... she said, "Good Bye."

I sat there looked into the buzzing dial tone. My husband had no sympathy. He said, "Maybe she will carry out her threat and end the world of one whacko woman."

Sleep didn't come to me the last night I spent in the Hampton House.

June

Hampton House Story

We moved to Hampton, Virginia from Sumpter, South Carolina where Katherine had been born at Shaw AFB.
She was 8 mo old when we made this move. The house we bought was under
construction therefore we were there in time to select all the carpeting and flooring.

We loved the little Cape Cod style home as it was near the Chesapeake Bay which offered so many fun things for the children. We learned to crab which was always entertaining. The area has beautiful waterscape views in almost any direction.. It was there that I overcame my fear of crossing bridges...why? There were bridges to cross many times each time we left home. They were everywhere, so the fear just went away.

We were there only 18 months when my husband
got an early promotion to the Pentagon. This cut short our time in this wonderful area. I regretted that, of course. The house sold quickly to two women who were in the Air Force, and we moved on with our lives.

Over
the years, any time we were traveling, we always enjoyed driving 'down memory lane' and seeing houses we had once owned and
lived in
...and especially this one.

At one point, years and years went by before we were in the area to visit the Hampton House...
An aging Volvo was sitting in the driveway. The house was sort of sad looking. The lawn unkempt. shrubs growing wild and flowerbeds empty. It was apparent that no one was there and of all things, the house looked totally abandomed.

Another few years went by before we went back...and there...of all things, the same car was still there in the same spot, rusting and the tires were flat from rot. This was too much for me as clearly something had happened in our once beautiful and lively home.

I went knocking on doors to find the answer.

They neighbors didn't really know. They said the two women stayed for only two years and sold the house to a young couple. They were there a few months and then
packed for a Florida vacation and never came back. Over the years, the neighbors had pitched in to keep the grass cut for their neighborhood appearance and picked up any random mail, etc... for now about twenty years.
"Did you report this to anyone?" (I would have.) They said that they had not.

I wanted to call "Unsolved Mysteries"...but alas, once we left, I stopped fretting over it...until the next time we were down that way after yet another few years ...

Again, I would talk to the neighbor...
The years rolled by and the situation went unchanged for a total of 30 years. Can you believe it? THIRTY YEARS !!!

We had left Hampton some 32 years ago, the women lived in the house only 2 years and then the young couple bought it and drove away, never to return.

Now, we couldn't wait to see if anything had changed as we were down that way again on our way to Nags Head Beach.

WELL! This trip, we were happily surprised...someone was there...workman...they were working on the little house.
I couldn't wait to see what was going on.
The new owner was there and had the house underway to be restored, inside and out. He invited us to go inside....

My~ the house was small. I couldn't remember the foyer and rooms being so small.
He had not taken up the flooring and carpet yet...all I had selected was still there. Visions of my babies being there flashed through my mind.
For sure, my hand was over my heart by this time and I uttered my thoughts...but only to and for myself. I was walking through a dream...or nightmare. It was weird. there are no words to represent the feeling I had. I could see my furniture there and my, my...what a small kitchen where we even had a family table. I was amazed that the same appliances were there and looked brand new. Of course, they actually hadn't been used since we were there.

My camera came alive but I didn't know what to shoot. There was no way to photograph my thoughts and feelings...my memories.

The best part is...
He had the rest of the story ~ he had bought the house from an elderly couple ( the people who had abandomed it 30 years ago when they were young.)
He had the whole story.

...First photo is how the house looked when we left it 33 years ago....then the rest were taken the day we were asked inside....


The new owner told us THE END OF THE STORY~:

The couple who abandoned the house went to Florida where he had another job and also had another house there and just left this one to return to one day. Why they never, ever came to check on it remains a mystery. They even left the furniture.

We have to assume or guess life went by too quickly for them....
when they returned, (30 years later) she had cancer and lived the remainder of her life in one of the upstairs bedrooms in a wheel chair and had only a hot plate and small refrigerator...and bed. She took care of herself and died in that room.

Her husband did nothing to the house and as soon as the wife died, he sold it, which turned out to be the month before we were there. He returned to Florida ...

The new owner said he left behind on the kitchen counter an album of photos the woman had taken pf the house the one and only summer they were there...He showed the album to me.

The photos were of nice beds of tulips she had planted in front and back flower beds. They also had painted the shutters red...was so cheerful and pretty ~
to me, it was so sweet to see that she had actually loved the house and brought life to it before leaving it to the elements. What in this world would make them leave their furniture and house unattended for thrity years? What were they thinking? Or is there part of the story we don't know?

These last three photos are the house under construction.

~How fortunate we were there at this very time in history as a month earlier or later, we would have missed this heartfelt experience.

Was bitter-sweet.
June