Hatchetman "Macke" Cemetery Investigation

There is a cabin in the woods where a number of years ago several murders took place. According to legend a man known as “Hatchet Man” went nuts and killed his family. He chopped them up and threw their bodies in a well behind the cabin. This is a true story that inspired a plot line for one episode of a hit crime scene investigation show on TV!

Some people believe that the Hatchet Man was once the caretaker of the cemetery.

Hauntings: Some locals claim that the cemetery and woods are haunted by the spirit of the Hatchet Man’s family and they will not rest in peace. Others believe the Hatchet Man himself actually haunts the area as well.

Wolf Skins is another nick-name of the cemetery. The story is that there are 2 stone wolves that sit on each side of the cemetery steps. When the wolves are not there they are out roaming the area with the hatchet man and protecting it from harm!

Another local legend is there is an iron fence at the back of the cemetery, if you grab onto the fence and say Hatchetman three times, he will come out and chase you.

Lots of EVPs and a local investigator, Becky, claimed to have seen a Civil War soldier and later saw some kind of blue energy in photographs that she took.

Address: E. Macke Rd., Clarke County near Marshall, Illinois

GPS: N 39 21.583 W 087 37.167

The Ghost Research Society investigated Hatchetman Cemetery on August 4, 2019 and the team members included: Mike Rosario and Dale Kaczmarek, with help from Jason Snider, Courtney Breanne and members of the Crawford County Illinois Ghost Society

Equipment setup: When we attempted an EVP session, two Melmeters were set up along with digital recorders, cameras and camcorders. An Ovilus X with DTD screen was also employed.

Experiments performed: A single EVP session was conducted around some toppled over gravestones. These desecrated graves seemed to have shovel marks that were also verified by both Rosario and Snider.

Rosario grabbed the iron fence and shout out Hatchet Man three times as the legend tells us with no response or paranormal activity.

Personal experiences:

Mike Rosario: On several occasions heard the sound of baby crying. He estimated the age to be around four or five of age.

Jason Snider: (From Kaczmarek) He was broadcasting a live Facebook session and said that his camera would not flip back to a wide view. He was also having problems with the camera light that is used for illumination during those sessions. The light began to flicker unexplainably. He also heard some metallic sounds coming from the woods.

Dale Kaczmarek: All of us began to hear strange noises and voices coming from the far end of the cemetery. It clearly sounded like a male and female talking back and forth. This was recorded during our visit. Jason yelled loudly several times, “Is there anyone here?” and got no response. That is absolutely crazy. If these were real people, they should have heard us and responded to our shout out but they didn’t!

Upon review of the Sony Nightshot video that I was shooting during our EVP session, I got a strange EMF burst of energy that literally effected the camcorder and was recorded on the tape.

Evidence collected:

EMF burst Hatchetman.MPG – while filming an EVP session and just after commenting about possible shovel marks near a desecrated grave, a strange EMF burst hit my camcorder and was recorded on the tape for approximately seven seconds.

Robert Hatchetman.MPG – while conducting an EVP session, a question was asked, “Can you tell us your first name?” A strange sounding true EVP in a high-pitched voice replied, “Robert!”

Strange sounding voice Hatchetman.MPG – while exploring the cemetery, all those assembled audibly heard disembodied voices coming from the woods and some of these “strange sounding voices” were indeed recorded. It was right after that, the Melmeter spiked to a 2.9 reading!

Two Hatchetman.MPG – while conducting an EVP session, a question was asked, “How many fingers do I have held up?” A low nearby voice responded with, “Two.” That was the correct answer also.

Words spoken by the Ovilus X in dictionary mode: warrior and park.

Conclusions: A very creep place that I want to return in early spring or late fall when the insect and cricket population is gone. The crickets were very loud and the voices that the group was hearing were hard to pick out from all the insect noise. A bionic ear or amplified device for picking up and recording very subtle voices is a must here.

We did not explore the Hatchetman cabin due to the tall grass and possible tics and chiggers. Even though we did not venture off the road, several of us did have some chigger bites. I believe it would have proved to be very interesting to conduct some EVP sessions in the cabin. A return visit is in store for next year.

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Date: August 28, 2020

Address: E. Macke Rd., Clarke County near Marshall, Illinois

GPS: N 39 21.583 W 087 37.167

GRS members present; Mike Rosario, Kelly Griffey and Dale Kaczmarek

Other investigators present: Jason Snider, Jason Dickerson, Courtney Mendenhall, Courtney Bowen and Ed Reese from Crawford County Illinois Ghost Society

History: There is a cabin in the woods where a number of years ago several murders took place. According to legend a man known as “Hatchet Man” went nuts and killed his family. He chopped them up and threw their bodies in a well behind the cabin. This is a true story that inspired a plot line for one episode of a hit crime scene investigation show on TV!

Some people believe that the Hatchet Man was once the caretaker of the cemetery.

Another local legend is there is an iron fence at the back of the cemetery, if you grab onto the fence and say Hatchetman three times, he will come out and chase you.

Lots of EVPs and a local investigator, Becky, claimed to have seen a Civil War soldier and later saw some kind of blue energy in photographs that she took.

Equipment setup: Digital recorders and cameras, Nightshot IR camcorders, IR binoculars, REM Epod and Melmeters were used.

Experiments performed: Two EVP sessions were conducted including the first using the ParaTek app and the last included a brief Ghost Box session along with an old-fashioned session.

Personal experiences:

Kelly Griffey: On the 29^th we visited Hatchetman Cemetery before the house. I was standing to the very back of the cemetery and we did hear sounds of someone or something walking. I noticed a very bad smell, and a member of Jason’s team said it was a sweet and foul odor he had smelled before but couldn’t place. I assumed it could be from a raccoon or septic somewhere nearby. We took a look at the area behind the back fence of the cemetery and decided that nobody was walking there because the brush was too thick for anyone to pass through without making a lot more noise.

While at Hatchetman house, in the forested area nearby, standing in the pitch black, Mikey and several members of the group noticed shadow figures darting about. They commented on the sizes, one tall and another small and child-like. Several times the shadow figures were noted. I turned to talk to the person standing next to me, thinking it was one of the girls in the group, and saw the outline of a figure in the blackness. When I turned my flashlight on, nobody was standing there. I was pretty scared after that throughout the EVP session we did standing around the well, and even after when we picked up nails and things scattered throughout the remains of the Hatchetman house. It was unnerving.

Mike Rosario: The following equipment that I used to investigate with here were: a K-II Meter, a Sony Night Shot Handy-Cam DCR-TRV13 NTSC 560 Digital-8 20X Optical Zoom Video Camcorder, an Amzdeal Tri-pod, a Green Laser Grid, a Philips Voice Recorder, an iPhone8 Cellular Phone (for pictures and video), and a Police Security Elite Blackout 615 Lumen Hands-free Heavy-Duty Head Strap Flashlight. The average weather for all of these investigations was clear, hot, near around 86° or so, but the temps dropped significantly during our nighttime investigations. I photographed a few known hotspots within the cemetery, and I believe also Jason did a Facebook Live session here as well. This was an interesting cemetery to investigate. A lot of irregular sounds from in and around the cemetery were present, as well as strange balls of light were evident and detected from many investigators within the group. As far as what I collected there at the scene, there wasn't any distinguishable evidence present at the site, both audibly and visually perhaps partly due to the contamination noises from many different sources.

Dale Kaczmarek: I really wanted to return to this location due the strange voices we heard last year that didn’t respond to us even when we screamed at them! Unfortunately there was just too much cricket contamination and other investigators talking in the background. The entire first EVP session was useless due to others not being quiet during this session.

The last session was started with a very brief Ghost Box session but then continued on as an regular EVP session but, here again, there was just too much talking as people claimed to have seen a strange pale light on several occasions and even some alleged shadow figures.

Evidence collected: None!

Words spoken by the ParaTek app: breath, hang, died, feeling, theme, hold, hi, wings, Sophia, quiet, head, observe, seven, gage, trouble, into, inches, fear me, Connor, feel, feet, general, Charlotte, been and phone.

Conclusions: In my opinion, this was a waste of time stopping here due to all the background noise and talking. Realistic EVP sessions cannot be conducted under those circumstances. Even though three names were captured on the ParaTek; Sophia, Conner and Charlotte, those were probably random names and words that came through as no intelligent responses to questions asked was recorded.

I think that last year’s visit was better as there was a smaller group and virtually no talking was picked up by other team members. I always believe that this is a very spooky place but I think one has to just set very quietly with cameras and recorders rolling in order to pick up anything paranormal.

With all the equipment that we brought, it was a shame that we never got a chance to use it due to noise, movement of others and almost constant contamination. I would like to return here again one year with a more disciplined group to see what one could pick up.