CLEVELAND — William Krejci has always had a strong love for Northeast Ohio history, folklore and stories of the unexplained. It's a passion that Krejci has now turned into a series of ghostly tours he calls"Strange & Spooky Cleveland Tours."
Krejci has done plenty of research and will soon be releasing his ninth book on the subject in September, titled, Lost Ghost Stories of Cleveland.
Krejci is also adding a new twist to his guided tours of greater Cleveland haunted places with a custom lantern that utilizes a high-definition projector that will display images relevant to tour locations.
"There are a lot of ghosts in Northeast Ohio, some of them have been forgotten for over 100 years.” Krejci said. “I will be telling the story and also presenting historic images associated with those stories.”
Krejci admits he wasn't always completely sold about the possible existence of ghosts until he started living in Cleveland's Franklin Castle in 2016.
“I was a skeptic until a few years ago," Krejci said. “But in that time living in that house, I went from, well, I don’t know to yes, it’s haunted. Yes, it was pretty surprising.”
Krejci told News 5 the Erie Street Cemetery, across from Progressive Field, is a hot spot for ghosts and restless souls.
“One of the stories that I found was from 1861 through 1863 about a colossal phantom called the Erie Street Ghost," Krejci said. “It was a ghost that used to stalk the grounds of Erie Street Cemetery and up and down Erie Street, which today it’s East 9th Street. It stood between 10 and 25 feet tall, and terrified the City of Cleveland on and off for the course of two years.”
Krejci has already started greater Cleveland tours and said he hopes to expand his strange and spooky tours to other areas of Northeast Ohio, including Put-in-Bay, in 2024.
“I want to give everyone a sense of the ghostly history that does surround us, but I also want to give everyone a little bit of thrill," Krejci said. “I really love to impart a sense of history that we’ve just forgotten about, and it’s a ghostly history that’s always been there.”
Watch live and local news any time:
Download the News 5 Cleveland app now for more stories from us, plus alerts on major news, the latest weather forecast, traffic information and much more. Download now on your Apple device here, and your Android device here.
You can also catch News 5 Cleveland on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, YouTube TV, DIRECTV NOW, Hulu Live and more. We're also on Amazon Alexa devices. Learn more about our streaming options here.
