Old Gray Cemetery Investigation
This blog post was written by Whitney Dankemeyer.
Founded in the year 1850, the Old Gray Cemetery in Knoxville, Kentucky is 13 acres long and has more than 9,000 people buried inside it. This gravesite’s atmosphere resembles English Poet Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” so it was named after him and his work by the cemetery trustee president, Henriette Reese. Inside of this cemetery are Civil War soldiers, a disliked newspaper editor, lovers reunited in death, and a displaced priest and scholar. In fact, this place is crawling with spirits.
When it comes to paranormal activity, there are countless reports of spirits at Old Gray. The first story we came across in our research was a reunited couple. These lovers’ names are Catherine Wiley and Lloyd Branson, who were said to never be “just friends.” Catherine was an artist and Lloyd was her mentor. Lloyd passed away in 1925, so when Catherine passed in 1958, the couple reconnected in the afterlife. You can occasionally see them meet for their midnight stroll, and you may even catch them hand-in-hand when you do.
Another spirit resides at Old Gray, and her name is Virginia Rosalie Coxe. Virginia passed away at a young age from a kidney ailment, so she is known to linger in the cemetery. In 2010, one of her hands was broken off her statue, so she is known to occasionally approach guests looking for her hand. If she confronts you, you are supposed to tell her the board has it and will be putting it back on. (Side note: the girls and I quickly noticed through research this was over ten years ago, so we are unaware if the statue was ever repaired. We did not find this statue during our investigation.)
The other well-known spirit to reside at Old Gray is a mysterious black entity called “Black Aggie.” Black Aggie has been at Old Gray since anyone can remember, but nobody knows why this spirit is there. Some believe Aggie is the misplaced priest, others presume his tomb was destroyed and he’s seeking out revenge. He will appear in a black robe at dusk, and if he does not like you, he will chase you out.
We arrived at Old Gray cemetery late afternoon on April 28, 2023. We just wrapped up two other investigations, so this was the next stop before suiting up and investigating an old Opera house. It was before dusk (just shy of when Aggie was rumored to come out), but because it was close to evening, we figured there was still a possibility of coming across Aggie’s spirit. We drove the perimeter to view the whole cemetery before we found a spot to rest. When we stopped, we shut the vehicle off, rolled down the windows, and started an Estes Method session.
Swan put the headphones on while I began introductions in an EVP recording on my phone. Swan started rambling a bunch of words from the spirit box right off the bat, but they came through so fast, Nicole and I assumed we were talking to multiple entities. When I asked if we could speak with only one person at a time, our spiritual acquaintance spoke up and said, “I was.” It appears there was only one spirit chattering the whole time, so I followed up with, “Oh, you were speaking?” And the spirit responded, “It’s karaoke.” Shortly thereafter, the temp gauge sounded, and our visitor said, “Ed” and “Love.”
Nicole and I stopped for a moment to talk because we thought the spirit was one of the lovers. We looked it up during our session and discovered the male lover’s name was actually Lloyd. We were unsure who Ed was specifically, so we knew we had to keep asking questions in order to gather more information. Before we were able to ask another question, Ed said “Yesterday.”
When we closed in on the “Yesterday” response, Ed said, “Tried to break in.” We asked who, and Ed responded, “High School.” We tried to get more answers out of him regarding who broke in, but he cut us off by saying, “I have an alarm” and set the temperature gauge off. (For those of you who do not regularly follow our investigations, a spirit has to physically touch the temperature gauge on our spirit box device in order for it to sound.)
Ed quickly moved on in the conversation and said he had a question, so I responded, “Okay, what is your question?” Ed answered by asking, “Are you married?” Nicole and I were unable to keep our composure, so after a few laughs, I responded, “No, I’m not married, but Ed.. I’m gay.” I was uncertain how our new friend would process this information, but he handled it like a champ and said, “You’re doing well.” We thanked him, and in that same moment Swan said she heard the word “T*tty” come through the headphones. This was followed by, “Know what I mean?”
Again, Nicole and I were roaring with laughter, but we told Ed we needed to keep it PG. We tried to change the subject and asked Ed if he was lonely, but he just couldn’t resist! He responded, “I’m experienced.” We told him we believed he was experienced and asked what kind of woman he was looking for. Unfortunately, the responses were pretty random, so we were unable to grasp what Ed tried to say. We did ask for clarification and he responded, “What are you talking about?” so we chuckled and said, “We’re trying to figure out what you’re talking about!”
While this occurred, Nicole and I occasionally peered out the window to view our surroundings. We wanted to be alert in case other spirits wandered around the car or within the cemetery. There was a moment where I witnessed a blonde-haired spirit running through the cemetery to the left of us, but we got distracted looking for it because we spotted an “Edward” beside our car. I shouted, “It’s Ed! There’s literally an Edward right there!” Ed sputtered out words while we freaked out about this discovery, but we were too excited to pick up on them.
The next thing we approached Ed about was Black Aggie. We had been sitting in the car talking with Ed for awhile now, so we wanted to get validation on some of the rumored spirits at Old Gray. We specifically wanted to know more about Aggie. I asked Ed if he knew where Aggie was, and he said, “Oh, I don’t even know.” When I tried to ask if he was going to show up, Ed cut me off and said “He will.” When I tried to clarify if he meant that he’d show up, Ed cut me off again and said, “Alleged.” Anything I tried to say, Ed answered faster. I told him I would just let him talk and he responded, “If you’re happy.”
After a few moments of silence, Swan heard the word “Learn” through the headphones and the temperature gauge sounded. We asked if he was learning how to use the device, and he said he was “Grabbing one of them.” This was incredible evidence to receive because as I said before, the temperature gauge will not go off unless a spirit is making physical contact with it. Seconds later, the temperature gauge went off, and Ed teased, “No I didn’t.”
We tried to continue joking around with Ed, but he interrupted us and said, “Chop, chop!” We were confused by this at first, and we began to wonder if Ed didn’t want to talk to us anymore. When we looked at the phone, however, we noticed that we stayed a half hour later than we anticipated. We had to rush across the city to get back to Swan’s sister’s apartment and get ready for our Opera investigation. We thanked Ed immensely for his time and friendship, and he responded, “All regards.” Although he tried to disagree with us when we said he was the best, we assured him that he was a fabulous, intelligent spirit. We also said would make it a point to visit him again one day. He responded to that with, “Ah.”
Finally, we told Ed we were going to give Swan her body back, and he answered, “You do what it takes.” Just like that, Ed was back to doing his usual thing. This was by far one of the most remarkable Estes Method sessions we’ve ever had with a spirit, especially during the afternoon. It was still daylight outside, yet Ed was able to have a full 12-minute conversation with us. If you haven’t been to Old Gray Cemetery in Knoxville, Tennessee, we highly recommend you do; and when you do, you tell Ed we said hi.
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