Cobbler's Shop

Name: AFCSC
Email:
Location: Orlando, Florida

Type: Ghost


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This story and the next several incidents that I will send to you do not qualify as "ghost stories" but they are some of the strange/paranormal experiences that I have had. I would perfer that you do not use my real name but the initials "AFCSC" instead.

The following story happened to me when I was 8 years old. If you are interested you can check out some of the details. This experience occurred during 1948/1949. The story made the top 10 of 1948 or 1949 of the Jacksonville Journal! My mother had received an invitation to interview for a job as a domestic for a shoe cobbler. The two of us went to this individuals residence for the interview. The shop was in front the residence in back. Had my mother accepted the position we would have moved in with him (there was an extra bedroom in the house/shop). I love machinery, always have always will. He had lots of interesting machines. He had all the equipment needed to make and repair shoes. There are very few shops as well equipped today. I fell in love with the place!!! The interview seemed to be going OK and I was free to look around. I was ordered by my old lady (I do not like to use the word mother) to NOT OPEN ANY OF THE DOORS. What 8 year old can resist exploring rooms and opening doors? I had lots of fun playing with the leather scraps and hand powered equipment (I did not turn any of the machines on). Soon I wandered back to the living quarters and opened the door to one of the rooms (I think I had been in this room with the two adults). I saw a man tied to a chair! His eyes were open and seemed to be looking at me or pleading with me! Enough! I closed the door being careful not to slam it and then went to find the adults. That was all that I needed at this place. I dared not tell my old lady what I saw (after all she had told me not to open any doors). I wanted nothing to do with anyone that kept people tied up in their house. I warned my Old Lady that this was a very un-good place: all I dared to say was that I smelled murder. I did not smell anything but I did not want to hand around this place any longer! We did not take the job or move in with the cobbler. We never saw the cobbler alive. We had some very weird experiences shortly after the interview but that is for another story. The cobbler? He was robbed and murdered (bound, tied, gagged, and strangled) by the shoe shine boy (black old man) that worked at the shop. The shoe shine boy was captured, convicted, and executed within 3 months of the crime. I used to have a copy of all the newspaper clippings in a scrap book (along with some other weird stuff). The photograph of the body, in the paper, looked somewhat like the person that I saw in the room.

Note: My relatives, on both sides of my family, are Psychic, Psychotic, Crazy, and/or a combination of the last three. I am the only normal one in the family.