TJ's Cafe Investigation

A very nice cozy place to eat right in the heart of Robinson, Illinois. Many positive comments on Yelp regarding the great food, especially the hamburgers.

Once known as Florence’s Restaurant or Old Flo’s next to Rural King since 1985. Florence “Flo” Henderson, eventually sold the restaurant to her daughter in 2004. Flo died September 15, 2019 at age of 88 and was buried in Kirk Cemetery on October 18, 2019.

Prior to Flo’s, the property was once thought to have housed a house and farm.

Address: 2088 E Main St, Robinson, IL 62454

Phone: (618) 544-7104

Owner: Misty Weger-Roy

Hauntings: Just before our investigation there were reports of a person or apparition inside the restaurant walking past the front windows. Police were called for a possible intruder but no human person was found in the restaurant or on the property.

Employees have reported pots and pans moving and, in some cases, flying off, hitting the floor. During a past Halloween, a skull decoration had been placed inside the restaurant and during an investigation by CCIGHS; the skull was vibrating and the jawbone moving on its own.

The Ghost Research Society investigated TJ's Cafe on August 2, 2019 and the team members included: Mike Rosario and Dale Kaczmarek, with help from Jason Snider, Courtney Breanne, Jason Dickerson, Donovan Hall, Riley Miller of the Crawford County Illinois Ghost Society and Tommy Jo Weger

Equipment setup: Most of our equipment of our equipment was set up in the dining room and front counter area. A REM Epod was placed by the cash register and it was monitored by a Sony Nightshot camera. A shadow detector was deployed facing the back wall and buffet area but was later taken down due to too many false alerts by flashlights that were setting it off. A Tri-Field Natural EM Meter was placed on one of the booths; a Geophone for possible vibration was placed on the serving area between the kitchen and the cash register area. Also used were Melmeters, digital recorders, cameras and camcorders with supplemental infrared illumination. During our EVP sessions the Ovilus X, Phasma Box and old school EVP sessions were used.

Rosario deployed his Sony Nightshot camcorder and Snider conducted a live Facebook session along with the various tools his team brought along.

Experiments performed: EVP, Ovilus X and Phasma Box sessions were conducted in the Dining Room and Basement.

Personal experiences:

Mike Rosario: Introduction: This year, Jason Snider and some of his wonderful CCIGHS team took us on an awesome adventure into the unknown in this exciting little tour of Crawford County, Illinois and beyond! Some locations visited were Marshall Cemetery, the Burl Ives grave site, several haunted church/cemetery locations (including beautiful Green Moss Church), a haunted cafe/restaurant, a roadside memorial haunting, a couple haunted bridge sites, and more!

Equipment used and Initial Investigation(s): Our investigations took off at approximately 7:15pm with some members of the CCIGHS team, Dale Kaczmarek, Joann Wade, and I on Friday, August 2, 2019. Weather was quite nice out, although it was a bit hot and muggy. Plenty of mosquitoes, attacking flies of all kinds, and crazy cicadas were definitely present! Equipment used was my K-II meter, a Sony Night Shot Handy-Cam DCR-TRV13 NTSC 560 Digital-8 20X Optical Zoom Video Camcorder, a C&M Vision Technologies 198-IR Light Illuminator Module, a Green Laser Grid, my Apple iPhone 8-Plus 256GB Smartphone, and a Police Security Elite Blackout 615 Lumen Hands-free Heavy-Duty Head Strap Flashlight.

For this investigation, we were guided by Jason Snider and some of his ghost hunting team in traveling to many various haunted sites located in the Crawford County areas, and off-road sites in rural Indiana. These were not 'set investigations,' per se. These were only short site visits to and from various haunted locations. Observing, and the reporting of evidence (if any), was the main objective of these trips. Also, there was some outdoor/field element contamination. We conducted both daytime and nighttime investigations at these locations noted above.

Upon reviewing all of my evidence, I didn’t have any visual evidence on my Nightshot camcorder, but I did have some EVP hits from TJ’s Café/Restaurant.

TJ’s Café:

~ “You Killed Him!”

~ “Shut the F*** Up!”

This was a very cool ghost excursion! This was my second time riding along side with Jason Snider and some of the Crawford County Illinois Ghost Hunters Society team, and for them hosting this excursion for us that weekend! It truly was an honor for them presenting some of the history and hauntings associated with these great locations! We couldn't have done it without them. It would be awesome to see them again, and venture out on another tour of the many places of the unknown down in southern Illinois and elsewhere!

Dale Kaczmarek: I had first seen TJs in 2018 but just took some exterior pictures. CCIGHS set up an after hour’s nighttime investigation in part due to some very recent full bodied apparition encounters.

I was seeing a strange pulsating light in the back room after most of the coolers and other sound and light contamination devices had been unplugged for our investigation. It might have just been a sign that was left on.

There were a lot of words coming through the Ovilus X in dictionary mode and some interesting response via the Phasma Box.

During our second EVP session in the Dining Room, a weird combination of Ovilus X and perhaps true EVPs were collected. The Ovilus X produced the name, “Satan” and not very long after that and in between words spewed out by the Ovilus X, a true EVP was captured that, to me, sounds like, “Please spawn!” This was followed by the Ovilus X saying, “Rot.” Pretty freaky and a bit scary if that’s what I heard. Not long after that, a religious word related to Jesus crucifixion came through, “Stigmata.”

The other strange combination of words like, “George”, “Attack” and later in the basement the Phasma Box blurting out, “You killed him!” is a bit like a story line. There was also reference to a possible “murder” followed by the name “Lynn.”

All of these combinations and somewhat negative words leads me to ask the question of possible past indiscretions perpetrated on this property in its past history. Further research into the history could shed some light on this.

During our third EVP session in the Dining Room, I thought I saw something in the backroom by the cartons for a quick moment. We all explored the area and found nothing amiss or natural that might have caused or created what I had just seen and I never saw it again for the rest of the evening there.

Evidence collected:

Attack tjs.MPG – while conducting an Ovilus X session in dictionary mode in the Dining Room, a question was asked, “George, what are you still doing here? What’s your reason for being here?” The device responded with, “Attack!”

George tjs.MPG – while conducting an Ovilus X session in dictionary mode in the Dining Room, a question was asked “What’s your first name?” The device responded with, “George.”

He’s a jagoff please spawn tjs.MPG – while conducting an EVP session in the Dining Room at the very beginning of the clip, a high-pitched voice says, “He’s a jagoff!” and at about the 9 second mark a whispery voice clearly says, “Please spawn.”

You killed him tjs.MPG – while conducting a Phasma Box session in the Basement, the device blurted out, “You killed him.”

Words spoken by the Ovilus X in dictionary mode: stood, Satan, comfort, notice, plant, let, calcium, however, batteries, team, here, tall, same, modern, gender, rot, already, George, less, afraid, boots, flowers, stigmata, actually, who, rope, shining, sixty, attack, Kim, Kim, pop, whose, Rose Lin, ground, seed, passed, wood, word, molecule, demand, school, empty, murder, Lynn, window, spell, thin, lord, mistake, revoked, yet, dope, numb, quilt, talk, key, site, memory, ghost, these, Kelly, love and center. Phasma Box – (sounds of children) “You killed him”, “human right”, “sooo people”, “ridiculous” and “people stink.”

Conclusions: This was an interesting investigation but I believe that there were just too many people in one room and that caused a bit of cross-talk and contamination during EVP sessions. It was sometimes difficult, if not impossible, to determine if a voice captured was really a real person or a ghost.

There was some strange 2-way radio interference that came through a few times during our EVP session in the Dining Room. Snider attempted to explain or possibly debunk the interference and voices as natural but could not make a firm determination on site.