The Bloody Bride Investigation: Haunted Bridge Series
This blog post was written by Whitney Dankemeyer, one half of Two Halves of a Soul.
Every small town has its local legends, and I grew up in an area full of them. In central Wisconsin, there’s not a whole lot going on around here. So. I grew up always hearing stories.
My former step sister and I were always infatuated with the paranormal, and hearing these stories fed our guilty pleasure even more. More often than not, we found ourselves huddled in front of our computer after school reading articles about “Haunted Wisconsin.” Nothing excited us more than reading neighboring towns we recognized on these sites, including seeing our own. There was one that always caught my attention when we scrolled past it, though. In fact, it was a story I ended up obsessing over as time passed. Any time I rested my eyes on the computer screen and saw “The Bloody Bride of Highway 66,” I could never look away.
The tales of The Bloody Bride go all the way back to the early 1960s. Legend has it that a bride and groom were traveling down Highway 66 of Stevens Point, Wisconsin the night of their wedding when a vehicular accident occurred. The bride is said to have died, but there was never any word regarding the condition of the groom that evening. Not only that, but there is actually no documentation proving this event had ever happened at all.
The story still continued, though, as it always mentioned a police officer encountering The Bloody Bride one night thereafter. He was patrolling Highway 66 when the distressed spirit appeared out of nowhere. Without time to stop, the officer hit the woman head on, and was then puzzled when he came to a halt. There was no sound or movement from hitting the mysterious woman in the road. The officer put the vehicle in park, stepped out of the car, and looked around only to find nothing there. It wasn’t until he was seated in his vehicle again when he found The Bloody Bride in his backseat. Once again, there is no report or record that this ever really occurred.
I took pride in sharing The Bloody Bride story with others. I had my 11-year-old self convinced I knew the legend better than anyone, so I would tell it like I lived it. I had even gone as far as printing out photoshopped images of others’ interpretation of her and would wave it around as I told the tale. It wasn’t until a teacher had caught me and sent a note home to my parents that my show-and-tell had ceased.
Although I was no longer allowed to scare the pants off my classmates, The Bloody Bride remained a favorite tale of mine. Now here we are, another 11 years later, and I found myself further down the rabbit hole than I’ve ever been.
We didn’t have the slightest clue what we were in for with this investigation. The first thing we discovered is that The Bloody Bride is said to be in multiple locations. There are different Highway 66s in Stevens Point and multiple bridges she is rumored to be on. This could explain why no documents or reports have been found related to a bride in an accident. No one is even sure where she really is!
I can’t say much about not knowing for certain where The Bloody Bride is, because I, myself, hadn’t the slightest clue where to find her. Everyone who was a part of our August investigation had heard of a different place to see this spirit. What we thought would be one investigation quickly turned into a series of them for just this one story.
We decided to investigate Jordan Park in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, located on WIS-66 E first. Our crew the night of August 13, 2022 was Swan and I, our friend and psychic mentor Amanda David, our contestant winner Tyshawn Kelly, and our dearest, dearest cousin Nicole Dankemeyer. We did a sweep of the area first before we began, where we took some photos. There wasn’t too much of the area to explore, as there was only the bridge, a tunnel underneath it, and small, surrounding bodies of water, so it wasn’t long before we started our actual investigation. Through a series of EVP and spirit box sessions, we received no evidence supporting The Bloody Bride. In fact, we didn’t get any evidence at all. The only indicator that something was present was the intense chest pressure felt halfway through the tunnel underneath the bridge. Three of the five in our group experienced different chest pains and pressure at the same time.
It wasn’t until the sun went down and we began the Estes Method that we finally started to get responses. Unfortunately, they weren’t the answers we were hoping for, but we were at least receiving something. We ended up not catching any solidifying evidence The Bloody Bride was at that location at all, but we met a male spirit who seemed to be really dazed and confused. He kept talking about his head and saying, “Ow,” almost as if he hit his head or suffered from head trauma. When asking him questions, the responses were all over the place, and he was struggling to collect himself. He further mentioned the water, being face down, and hitting something, to which we connected to the head comments he made earlier. We believe an accident occurred that resulted in him hitting his head and falling into the water.
Due to the continuous growls while performing the Estes Method, though, we decided to conclude the session and make the trek back to the car. We left that evening a little sad and disappointed, questioning whether or not The Bloody Bride was a fictional story after all.
That was until we looked into other locations.
Swan and I made plans to finish the rest of the bridge investigations alone. We decided there were four bridges we were going to cover in two days: Jordan Park on WIS 66-E (again), Red Bridge on Casimir Rd, WIS-66 E over Plover River near Iverson Park, and WIS-66 heading towards Rusty’s Backwater Saloon out of Stevens Point. We chose to cover the Iverson Park area and 66 towards Rusty’s first on August 20, 2022. The others would be investigated the evening of August 21, 2022.
To prepare for all four of the locations we were about to investigate, I dove right into research online to gather any information on The Bloody Bride that I could. I couldn’t rely on my knowledge of it from when I was 11 forever, so I started with just putting her name in the Google search engine.
BLOODY BRIDE STEVENS POINT WISCONSIN
I came across many articles telling the story over and over again. Each video and site I came across, the more I noticed details changing in the smallest way. Not having documented proof is one thing. Having multiple tellings of the story is another. Shit.
I was beginning to lose hope. In a state of panic, I figured I might as well start with a list of the places we’re going to look at with their addresses. I started with 66 towards Rusty’s.
Done.
I got directions from a friend for the location of Red Bridge on Casimir Rd.
Nice. Done.
I revisited my GPS history for Jordan Park.
Done.
Then I got to Plover River.
For the life of me, I couldn’t locate Plover River on the map. So I searched it. When it came up, it was outside of Stevens Point and I couldn’t trace it back to the city at all. I tried searching Jordan Park again to see if I could find it around there, and when I hit enter, it generated a Jordan Ln. Not what I asked for, but when I clicked out of it, the map generated WIS-66 E/10 in the center of Stevens Point. I glance down at my computer and I see it. Right across that highway is a small blue line labeled “Plover River.”
Thank you, Universe.
Excited that I finally found it, I wanted to research it further. I happened to come across a page I’ve never seen before. It didn’t seem very insightful until I got to the end of the article and noticed the comments. It read:
“She was my grandmother’s (on my mom’s side) sister. Strange that there’s no record of it – I, as well as the rest of my family, have always known about it. Her name was Bernice (Bonnie) Bannach. She was born on August 7th 1937 in Stevens Point, and she died on her wedding night – November 10th 1956.)”
My jaw hit the floor. Did I just find The Bloody Bride?
I put Bernice’s name into the Google search engine and immediately there she was, matching birth date and death date. The first link that came up was for Ancestry.com. I knew I would need an account in order to view her documents. I had an account from back when I purchased a DNA kit, but my free trial had ended. Luckily, we have another email for our Two Halves of a Soul account. So, I signed up for another free trial.
I get signed up and I go into the profile for her on Ancestry. It showed Stevens Point, and I found marriage and obituary newspaper articles linked to it. As soon as I clicked on the link for the first newspaper article, it wanted me to sign up for another free trial on newspapers.com. Are you fricken kidding me?
After signing up for yet another tree trial, I was finally able to pull up and read the newspaper articles. The first one was for Bernice and Charles’ double ring ceremony in February of 1956. It explained where they married and where they celebrated after, but nothing stated she passed away that same night.
That was when I decided to pull up the obituary. Months later, in November of 1956 (same as the comment from the website mentioned above), Charles and Bernice KOEPKE were in the process of moving to Appleton, Wisconsin when they struck a telephone pole with their vehicle on Highway 96. Bernice was the passenger and died on scene from a skull fracture. Charles survived with a pelvic fracture. Bernice was only 19 when this accident occurred.
The first thing I noticed from this article was the different last name. The woman’s comment on the Bloody Bride article was posted back in 2014 and only said her last name was Bannach, not Koepke. I was curious if no one was able to make the connection to any documents because she died with her married last name.
The next thing I noticed is where Bernice lived and the different highway listed in the obituary from The Stevens Point Journal. She was from Stevens Point but graduated in Menasha, Wisconsin. Charles was from Neenah, Wisconsin. The highway was also different, as it was Highway 96 and not Highway 66. However, Highway 66 in Stevens Point turns into 10 which connects to Highway 96, as that is the route one would take from Stevens Point to Appleton. While one could lose hope this far into the investigation, I found a possible connection. If Bernice had any ties to Stevens Point and this route, her tragic accident could have trapped her on the highway, to which she traveled and reached out to cars for help. Her being young and this accident likely happening fast, she also may not have been aware of her death. Being in distress, this could explain why she was reportedly asking for help on the highway and getting even more upset that no one was doing anything to save her. She could have perceived herself to look scary to get others' attention. That, or she could’ve even been wearing white the day she passed and was bloody due to the accident and skull fracture.
Better yet, I then remembered information I gathered from every other article I read prior. The Bloody Bride stories began in the early 1960s. Bernice died in 1956. The timeline would match. And the reason why she may not be as active anymore could be a result of her finally figuring out her passing. Tragic, but something not all spirits who die horrifically are aware of right away.
This was actually incredible research. I had so much to go off of when we began the investigation. The obituary even mentioned her working at Zwicker Knitting Mills in Appleton, which became compelling evidence for us later.
We pulled onto the highway with the ovilus in hand, ready to turn it on before passing over the Plover River and the 66 bridge. We wanted to go over it before pulling into Iverson Park next to it, as this is a busy road with construction on it. The minute we turned it on, the ovilus said knit. Remember when I said she worked at a Knitting Mill? Yeah. You just wait.
We didn’t get much going over the bridge, so we pulled into the park and got as close to the bridge as we could. After taking a few photos of the bridge from the park, we left the ovilus on while we ran an EVP and Estes Method session. Lots of devices for her to communicate on.
We began the session by asking if anyone was there, and Swan (who had the headphone on) said here. The ovilus said come not too long after. I then asked if it was Bernice I was talking to. Swan said “who?” I said “You,” and she replied, “Me?” It was as if the spirit who was here didn’t remember their name at all. If this was Bernice, her death was over 66 years ago. Their names are usually the first to go.
I proceeded with asking questions, starting with asking Bernice about the rumors of her as The Bloody Bride. Swan responded, “hmm!” in a humble way, that almost seemed like she'd accepted the title now. I asked again if she could tell me her name, and she responded “she” and “her.” She definitely didn’t remember. So it was important to ask her what she did know, which is what I did next.
This is where it all connected. She responded with knit on the ovilus. This was the second time we received that word, and I couldn’t help but immediately think of the knitting mill she worked at. Minutes later, I had asked if there was anything else she could tell us about herself to confirm it was her. Swan responded with knit and work. I couldn’t believe what was happening. Bernice couldn’t remember her name, but she remembered where she worked. This helped significantly with connecting our evidence to our research.
To face the uncomfortable, we asked her if she was trapped here or stuck on the highway from the accident. We asked this question because if she needed help finding peace, that was something we were good at. She didn’t mention being trapped, but she used the words, “strange,” “awful,” “smoke,” “bad,” “mistake,” and “me” to describe the accident she experienced. We gracefully reminded her that she was not to blame for anything and we were here to help her in any way that we could.
Following the investigation with Bernice, we didn't find anything driving out of town on 66 passing Rusty's, but we decided to look into the Zwicker Knitting Mills in Appleton when we got home. We found an article on John and Cece Zwicker, who were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. This article was published in July of 1999.
John Zwicker returned from the navy after World War II and started working at his father’s company that was established in the 1920s. This was the Zwicker Knitting Mills. This business manufactured wool-knit winter wear that ranged from mittens, to hats, to scarves. John was the company’s vice president, and in 1965 became head of another mill they had purchased. The Zwicker mills employed more than 2,000 people and stayed in operation until the 1990s when Japanese imports put them out of business.
Following up with Charles Koepke, we found an obituary for Charles dating back to 2015. He was remarried to Elaine and there was no mention of his former wife in the tribute to his life.
We did investigate the other two bridges, Red Bridge on Casimir and Jordan Park a second time. We can confirm there were no other potential bloody brides at either of these locations, but we did pick up on a few different things at each one.
On Red Bridge, we felt an eerie vibe as soon as we passed over it. The whole time we were there, we felt watched from the woods. It was almost as if eyes were on us at all times. We never saw anything, but the ovilus confirmed there was more than one entity there. When I asked who was with us, it said me. I asked if they could tell us anything, and our spirit box was the quietest it’d ever been. It wasn’t until I asked, “did you not want to talk and just want me to know your presence was here?” that Swan responded with “we.” Nothing further after that.
Going back to Jordan Park, we even walked the park this time. We didn’t get much else for evidence other than the fact that the accident from last time was on "holiday." The ovilus also said “should” and “records,” as if Swan and I should look into accidents. Considering there was a campground nearby, it would make sense if someone fell and hit their head on the rocks while they were here on holiday. We will keep you informed on further research we find regarding this portion of the investigation.
Overall, we were genuinely surprised we got as far as we did with our research. After our first investigation at Jordan Park, we didn’t think The Bloody Bride was real anymore. But we found her, and she is traveling up and down Highway 66 in Stevens Point headed towards Appleton. Her name is Bernice, but you can call her Bonnie. She was 19 years old when she died and she really seems to have loved her job. We would love to one day get in touch with Bonnie’s family and see what else they know and remember about her when she was alive. Although it seems the tale has been slightly passed down through a game of telephone throughout the years, she was a real person, and she is more than just a Bloody Bride.
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