Laine Crosby had no choice.
Her 3-year-old son?s toy dump truck was possessed, and Crosby, a 41-year-old Montgomery County mother of two, had to kill it.
Muck the Dump Truck ? a member of Playskool?s Bob the Builder family ? was talking to Crosby, but not with his usual rotation of cheery phrases, like “I love getting dirty” and “I can dump it.”
The tiny plastic toy truck was yelling at her: “I am in control!”
Crosby knew she had a problem.
“I was terrified,” she told The Examiner from her Derwood home.
At first, she and her husband chalked it up to a factory malfunction. Maybe the wrong computer chip had been installed.
When the spookiness became unbearable, Crosby took Muck outside, placed it on the driveway, jumped into her Chevy Blazer and eased down on the gas pedal, crushing the toy into plastic pieces.
Who?s in control now, Muck?
The Ghost Lady
The paranormal seems kooky ? possessed toys, conversations with family members who?ve “crossed over,” ectoplasm, orbs, the gift of seeing dead people.
It all sounds like something out of a Stephen King novel, or a movie starring Bruce Willis or Bill Murray. But a lot of people apparently buy into it ? more than 3,500 people have joined the Maryland Ghost and Spirit Association, which is the brainchild of Beverly Litsinger, Maryland?s most in-demand paranormal
investigator.
The group?s Web site has had more than 2 million hits since Litsinger started it two years ago, she said.
Litsinger, 54, works out of an office at her Randallstown home in Baltimore County. She has a soothing manner that?s more school teacher than ghost whisperer.
Her cluttered living room is overrun with two things: cats ? there are five, and photo albums ? there are too many to count.
She keeps thousands of photos of ghosts in flower-print albums, the kind bought at a dollar store and usually stuffed full of pictures of families and friends.
Ghosts, she says, are real, and they want to communicate.
“God gives us the freedom ? when we are here on earth ? to make decisions, and when we die, he doesn?t take it away from us. If we don?t want to pass over, and we need to be here for a reason, he allows us to,” she said.
Her first encounter with the other-worldly is still vivid.
Sitting cross-legged on her living room floor, she shuts her eyes tightly to tell the tale, as if replaying the scene on a projection screen in her mind.
She was 7 years old and walking with friends to school in Salisbury. Suddenly, a “pretty woman in a pretty dress” passed her.
“I thought she was the most exquisite-looking woman I had ever seen,” she said. “And as I was looking at her, thinking how I wished I was that pretty; she disappeared. And I thought, OK, she?s a ghost.”
Since then, she has seen “hundreds and hundreds” of ghosts, from an evil one that formed a Ghostbusters-like ectoplasm on the top of her ceiling to soldiers speaking about lost love from the battlefields of Gettysburg.
“I don?t know why I have the ability, I just do,” she says.
One of Litsinger?s most valued traits as a paranormal investigator is her ability to capture full-body images of ghosts on film.
She organizes her photos in albums and uses computer-typed white labels to identify some of her favorite haunts ? the Rams Head Tavern, Gettysburg, the Eastern State Penitentiary, the Patapsco Female Institute, Westminster Hall.
Most of the pictures show orbs, the small white balls of light that are thought by some to be ghosts on film. Ghosts use the orbs to travel, Litsinger said: “It?s like their car.”
If the orbs, which could be the reflection of a flash or dust on the film or lens, aren?t convincing enough evidence of a ghost?s presence, there are a few pictures that are genuinely eerie.
One, taken at the Eastern State Penitentiary, vividly shows what appears to be a Victorian-era nurse standing behind a row of prison bars. Her face is obscured, but her white form is fully visible. It?s chilling.
When Litsinger does an investigation, she brings her camera to capture images like these. It is, of course, possible that Litsinger?s claim to seeing ghosts and spirits is a way to make a quick buck. But consider this: Litsinger has never charged for an investigation.
“I?m just so fascinated,” she said. “I never get around to charging.”
A sense of fear
Laine Crosby reached out to Litsinger in the fall of 2004, after the Muck the Dump Truck incident.
She was concerned about a few odd things that were happening around her house, like when she?d walk downstairs and find all the cabinet doors open, or find her dogs so frightened they?d be shaking.
They met Oct. 2, 2004, and were instant friends. Over dinner on Crosby?s back porch, they talked about what had been happening and Litsinger took a few photographs. Then Litsinger introduced Crosby to Bill.
Bill was a slave at the Needwood Mansion, which is about half a mile from Crosby?s house in Montgomery County, in the 1800s. He told Litsinger and Crosby that he was forced to watch the hanging of his father as a small boy, and that he didn?t want to cross over yet.
“Bill told Beverly: ?I really like Laine; she understands me,? ” Crosby said.
What shook Crosby was that she had sensed a presence named Bill in her home before ? she?d even seen his reflection in the mirror. At that moment, Crosby realized she also had the ability to communicate with the dead.
“At first I was relieved, but it was inextricably linked to a sense of fear,” said Crosby, who now works as an investigative medium and is writing a book of historical fiction about the slaves of Needwood Mansion.
Knowing how to communicate is the key to talking to the dead, Litsinger said. “A lot of people?s heads are too full,” she said.
“They?re thinking about their shopping lists, about their kids, about what they?re doing tomorrow. There?s no room for anything else to get in there. You really have to clear your head to be able to communicate.
“For most people, a ghost could be standing on their foot, and they wouldn?t even know it.”
