Justice Diner (former) and Apartment Complex Investigation

The Ghost Research Society was the first professional paranormal team to investigate Justice Diner area!

This triangular-shaped area of land bordered by Archer Avenue, 88^th Avenue and 79^th Street once housed the Justice Diner, a model home and an apartment building. The apartment complex was built in 1961 when former tenant Valerie Kolacki contacted me on August 11, 1995.

Within shouting distance of nearby Bethania Cemetery, consecrated in 1894, this strange triangular-shaped area of land had tombstones in the back yard, one of which had fallen over on its side and was partially obscured with bushes. At first, Valerie simply thought that they were discarded concrete slabs until her niece began to move some dirt away from the larger one and discovered some writing. After I was invited to investigate the site, I dug a bit deeper and was amazed to find written on the tombstone the following: “August Boness, GEB 15 Oct 1888, GEST 26 Marz 1915" and simply “Schulz” on a smaller round marker near the parking lot.

The Justice Diner was only a hundred feet or so east of the apartment complex while the model home was just slightly south; all on that same mysterious triangle of land. In all actuality, the apartment complex was the closest building to these mysterious stones.

Valerie was diagnosed as terminally ill from cancer and was in extreme discomfort most of the time, sometimes taking liquid morphine to subdue her pain. She was however not hallucinating and seemed perfectly aware and clear-minded about the whole affair. She has lived in that apartment for twelve years at the time of the investigation and claims that the phenomena start about eight or nine years after moving in.

All the buildings have been bull-dozed and a new strip mall in this place along with a Dunkin Donuts. The current whereabouts of the tombstones is a mystery. However, to find the approximate location of that innocuous bash and the Boness tombstone’s former location; it’s almost a straight line from the former Why-Not Drive-In, now called Jimmy’s, across Archer Avenue.

Address: near 7899 Archer Ave., Justice, Illinois 60458

Hauntings: She described seeing a man’s shadow walking around in the kitchen while she was lying in bed. It was most definitely a male figure that she was sure of. Her rocking chair and baby toys have moved on their own dozens of times. As well as silverware, watches and personal items, some of these were becoming misplaced for a while. Her front doorbell would often ring at 2 a.m. or in the middle of the afternoon and no one would ever be at the door. Friends and neighbors all knew of Valerie’s condition and would always give her plenty of time to answer the door, so it obviously one of them. Plus a man’s voice was also heard talking or holding a one-sided conversation in the living room and back bedroom.

A strange indescribable odor would often waft through the apartment and then quickly dissipate. Lights would turn on and off and her cat, Sebastian, would often arc its back, hiss and then scoot out of a room very quickly. Sometimes he would look upwards at the ceiling and follow something unseen with his eyes. One strange incidence was related by Valerie, “One time Bastian (short for Sebastian) screeched loudly and ran out of the back bedroom. Upon checking him, I found a patch of his hair missing at the back of his neck!” Indentations in both living room furniture and a bedroom chair were indications to Valerie that someone was seated on the upholstery.

One evening, a neighbor friend of hers, who was very skeptical of the stories that Valerie was telling her, had her own unique experience in the basement laundry room. Upon entering the darkened room which was well-illuminated by nearby streetlights and a full moon, she was shocked to see the figure of a man lying on the laundry room table enveloped in an eerie blue light. When the light switch was flipped, there was no one there! Needless to say, she changed her mind about doing the laundry that evening!

Sounds of things falling over in rooms became more pronounced and when investigating, she would find nothing amiss. The television and VCR would suddenly turn off in the middle of watching a rented movie as though the ghost wanted her full attention. “Punching” sounds on the walls and tall kitchen door were a new event and a male voice yelling as if in anger, yet indistinguishable was as heard. And, her niece and two nephews actually saw “him” standing in the kitchen. According to Valerie, he wasn’t moving or doing anything, “just standing there, but for a long period of time.

She began to call this apparition George, for lack of a better name. So when anything would happen, she would simply say that George was doing it and for him to stop scaring her. She even tried an Ouija board session, against my wishes, but she truly wanted to find out who the ghost was and what he/she wanted.

Stanley Suho and Lucia Solis were brought in to help with the investigation as well as Pat Shenberg, clairvoyant. Extremely high EMF readings were indicated in several portions of the apartment correlating with the supernatural events that Valerie experienced. The show Sightings even did a segment here for the television show and brought along psychic, Peter Anthony who discovered psychic feelings both outside in the back yard (close to the gravestone markers) and downstairs in the basement.

The phenomena continued the entire time Valerie lived at the apartment until she moved out in March of 1999 to Ramsey, Illinois.

Equipment setup: Only hand-held devices were deployed including the ParaTek on my Samsung Galaxy S-21 Slim Ultra, digital recorders and cameras and a Nightshot camcorder.

Experiments performed: One single ParaTek app session was conducted very near to where the Boness headstone once was.

Personal encounters:

Mike Rosario: Intro, and Equipment Used: For this investigation, we traveled to the Former Justice Diner and Apartment area (near Bethania Cemetery), located in Justice, Illinois. This took off on Tuesday, May 24, 2022, at approximately 9pm, with Dale Kaczmarek, and a few other members of the GRS team. Evening weather was chilly, with cloudy to partly cloudy skies, and breezy with light, intermediate rain drops. Equipment used in this investigation were my K-II Meter; a Philips VoiceTracer Digital Voice Recorder, and a DVC 4K Ultra HD 48mp Night Shot Digital Video Camcorder.

Initial Investigation: For this investigation, I was accompanied by Dale, Paul, and Michael Garrett. I began by doing my usual K-II sweeps around the grassy areas of the former Diner and Apartment Complex. Very high readings, all around! Top the scales with it. +30mG or so. I checked for any powerlines, nearby personal para-equipment, and even vehicles. The numbers would read significantly high just until you get past a very large tree, perpendicular to the highway side (curb), and then the readings would drop, and the K-II would then be at the base green color. ‘Twas a very interesting night investigating here, as there were some EVP’s that hit the nail on the head when it came to answering some of our questions. Nearly all answers were relevant. We had done our EVP sessions mostly near this large tree area (hot spot), with the help of our Phasma Box ITC device as well. We will need to come back again, and do a more thorough investigation for sure. Great place!

Evidence: Upon reviewing all of my evidence, I did not capture any video, but did get some audio evidence. The evidence captured is below:

~ “Freezing.”

~ “Headstone; Name.”

~ “Seventy.”

~ “Happy.”

Dale Kaczmarek: We had a small group of investigators present on a very chilly and windy evening very near to the apartment complex that used to exist here and the abandoned Boness tombstone.

The responses that we received on the ParaTek app were quite amazing especially “Freezing”, “Headstone Name”, “Seventy” and “Yeah.” I believe that all of the responses were intelligent in nature. While I realize that we were using a random word generator app called ParaTek; for those specific words to come through when asking specific questions, to me, was quite amazing. Some of the answers were immediate and due to the app’s generic generated voice, we could not determine if the gender was male or female.

The name Michael came through and we had two GRS members named Michael at this investigation.

The Ghost Research Society investigated this location on May 24, 2022. Team members included: Mike Rosario, Mike Garrett, Paul Adams and Dale Kaczmarek

Evidence collected:

Freezing Justice.MP4 – while conducting a ParaTek app session, the first word said after the device was turned on was, “Freezing” and it was quite chilly and windy that evening.

Happy Justice.MP4 – while conducting a ParaTek app session, a question was asked, “Why are you still here?” The device responded with, “Happy.”

Headstone name Justice.MP4 – while conducting a ParaTek app session, a question was asked, “How old are you?” The device then said two words that were very relevant to this location, “Headstone” and “Name.”

Seventy Justice.MP4 – while conducting a ParaTek app session, a question was asked, “How many tombstones were on this property?” The device answered with, “Seventy.”

Under Justice.MP4 – while conducting a ParaTek app session, a question was asked, “Do you know where they (tombstones) went?” The device responded with, “Under.”

Yeah Justice.MP4 – while conducting a ParaTek app session, a question was asked, “Are you near one of us?” The immediate response was, “Yeah.”

Words spoken by the ParaTek app: freezing, railway, foul, village, hair, wanted, determined, need, immersion, Victoria, inner, different, you win, Isabella, yourself, killing, relics, headstone, name, fade, last, knife, warm, late, often, reached, remember, fire, religion, reach, died, haste, recorded, upheld, add, under, effect, fell, nine, number, void, ball, seventy, haste, fade, important, happy, spot, grow, into, fit, usual, mummy, yours, limbo, Steven, newer, upper, Michael, designate, able, paint, Steven, dash, fear, kind, remote, yeah & bike.

Conclusions: This area was completely different then when the GRS had investigated the Kolacki apartment complex. No old structures remain and no idea where those headstones disappeared to. I’m assuming that there are still bodies buried within this mysterious triangle of land.

The GRS was featured on the old television Si-Fi show “Sighting’s” hosted by Tim White. The film crew arrived on September 12, 1995 and was later joined by psychic, Peter Anthony. Mr. Anthony, unfortunately probably overhead the crew discussing the phenomena when he first arrived which most likely tainted his psychic impressions. According to the show, it was Mr. Anthony who first discovered the tombstones hidden underneath the bushes. This is not true! Valerie and Kaczmarek were the first ones to uncover these stones and recognize them as true forgotten headstones.

Anthony believed that there were many people buried, not only on the property, but under the apartment complex where the basement was then located. That would make sense since headstones were found on the property but ground penetrating radar could have been used to determine if the ground was disturbed and people actually buried there.